


ghost

by iamafishstik



Series: Лед и Сталь | Ice and Steel [1]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, BAMF Natasha Romanov, BAMF Women, Brainwashing, Broken Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes's Plums, Canon Compliant, Codependency, Dubious Morality, Eventual Romance, F/M, Historical Accuracy, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Torture, Kid Natasha Romanov, Long-Term Relationship(s), Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Morally Ambiguous Character, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Pain, Partnership, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Psychological Torture, Red Room (Marvel), Slow Burn, Super Soldier Serum, Touch-Starved, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier has a partner, ghost initiative, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 21:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 58,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21435010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamafishstik/pseuds/iamafishstik
Summary: It began like all tragic stories did; with the destruction of a family, with a betrayal, with a theft, with tears and screaming and blood.It ended much the same; but this time the betrayal was her own failure, and the theft was when he was taken from her.
Relationships: Bucky Barnes & Original Female Characters, James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Лед и Сталь | Ice and Steel [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747474
Comments: 127
Kudos: 162





	1. Prologue: GHOST

_It began like all tragic stories did; with the destruction of a family, with a betrayal, with a theft, with tears and screaming and blood._

_It began in the middle of the night; it began a mere two days after the Romanovs welcomed their darling daughter; healthy and perfect in every way. Perfect – but, unlucky. _

_Unlucky enough to be selected from a random lottery that had selected families and gathered children from across the Soviet Union. Unlucky enough to be ripped away from her family before she even knew them._

_Perhaps it was for the best. _

_There was, at least, nothing to miss – nothing to tie her to the outside world. _ _She didn’t remember her childhood – or perhaps, adolescence was a more apt word, devoid of the warmth that the term ‘childhood’ inspired. _ _She didn’t remember anything but pain._

_Dramatic, and yet, accurate. _

_She used to be one of many; she knew that much. There used to be others with her, other children, before what made her destroyed them. Why she survived and the others did not was anyone’s guess – and yet, it was always made clear that they still held her life in the balance. A scare tactic, perhaps – though disobedience never crossed her mind – there was nothing but service. Nothing but the mission._

_Nothing but the mission._

_It was branded on her in every way except physically. In every language she knew, in the bruises she gained and the blood she spilt, in the shadows at night, in the shifting of her body, in every breath she took. _

_There was nothing but the mission – until he came._


	2. Algeria, 1956

** _ Algeria, 1st April, 1956.  _ **

** _The Rue Larbi Alik, Holiday Residence of Jacques Dupuy. _ **

** _03:00._ **

* * *

Even in the airless transport vehicle, she could smell the delicate scent of the blooming peonies that lined the manicured streets of the Algerian capital’s streets. The Rue Larbi was a particularly rich area of Algeria; though Algiers was already considered the home of the upper 10%. That had factored into their briefing. Private security was a dime a dozen, and the political climate’s turbulence as of late meant that the rich and famous were getting antsy.

Her partner was still in the midst of his pre-service, silver arm glimmering under the light of the technician’s torch. He, as always, seemed unaware of the work upon him, despite the discomfort she knew he felt if they weren’t careful. And they usually weren’t. The faint buzzing of her collar and cuffs was barely audible over the quiet rumble of the truck engine, but she could still feel it – just on the edge of pain, keeping her in place. Their handlers were talking quietly, but she didn’t care to listen in. If she needed to know, she would know. Anything else was irrelevant to her, to the mission. And there was nothing but the mission.

“мы прибыли.” **_We’re here_**. Her partner’s handler spoke in Russian, casting his eyes over both of them.

Her handler approached her. His usual cold stare was firmly in place, tempered with the warning he always instilled in his watery blue eyes before a mission. He was getting towards his midlife. She could see the weakness in him, even if his rank belied it. He greyed at his temples, and she suspected he was developing a cataract in his left eye. But she did not care, and the information was merely filed away, like everything else.

“Это должно выглядеть грязно.” **_It must look messy._** He reminded her, taking out the master key for her cuffs. The back door of the van was opened, and in one smooth movement, her partner stood, taking his weaponry and jumped to the ground. He stood, waiting. “Нет пощады.” **_No mercy._**

“Никогда.” **_Never._** She agreed lowly and got to her feet. It was only after she joined her partner on the road, that she felt the sudden freedom, the electric current running through her absent.

It was 03:11. They had until 06:00 to complete their objective and meet back at their rendezvous point. Time was ticking.

The holiday home of their target was as opulent as the rest of his lifestyle. Jacques Dupuy wasn’t overly qualified for the role of French Defence Minister; his father was the one who had served in the military, and it was his vast influence and presence in Algeria that was the most likely clause for his election. Considering the discontent within the lower classes of Algeria, and the general dislike of French rule; it was more than likely that the French government had elected someone who knew the lay of the land. Though from what their intelligence suggested, Dupuy spent more time indoors than truly exploring and experiencing Algeria. His holiday home received an exorbitant amount of… female visitors, and other unsavoury company.

She wondered briefly if his wife and children knew the extent of his debauchery. It was likely his wife knew – though rather than risk the loss of her lifestyle, she probably kept it to herself.

The rumble of their transport faded into the warm night, and they were alone on the dark street.

Her partner had his eyes on the windows and the balconies; no doubt calculating how many guards were active, what their watch pattern looked like. She kept her eyes on the tall wall ahead of them, and the security cameras lining the impressive structure. The first obstacle.

It was second nature, ingrained in her now, like muscle memory; to reach out for him, fingers making contact with the cool metal of his arm – and phase them both out of sight, out of touch.

It used to be difficult; already straining to keep _herself_ invisible, and or, intangible – she had to then take him with her too, all his hulking frame and gear and hide them both. The first time she had done it with any acceptable level of success, she had been out of action for days – body pushed beyond its limit.

Now – it was a distant exhaustion, a dull pain, like running a marathon on a sprained ankle.

She stretched her awareness to all of him, to every fibre of his being, down to his muscles, his bones, his marrow, his blood, his cells. And she took every inch of him, and pulled it into her own field of strange energy that she didn’t understand – and phased them out of awareness of the world around them.

It was a strange sensation. It was cold, and everything went shades of grey when she phased – like she truly wasn’t in the mortal realm; just some sad imitation of it. But it was peaceful. Sounds and scents dulled, making everything just that little bit easier.

It was like being put into cyrosleep – but she could control this.

* * *

They melted through the wall, past the entrance camera, and through the front door before she had to release him. She came back to visibility and tangibility, looking to him, catching her breath and staying the faint dizziness. His eyes were hidden beneath his visor, but she knew he was analysing her, considering her state of ability.

It was second nature to her as well. If he wasn’t functioning then he was a liability, and she had to adjust accordingly.

She straightened, and gave him a small nod. He turned from her, and gestured to the stairs. “Найди его, я разберусь с остальными.” **_Find him, I'll deal with the rest._** It would split the time in half – still giving them the ability to stage a vicious attack, rather than an assassination orchestrated by an outside party. The followers of the Algerian Nationalist Movement were the people, the middle and lower class without access to the kind of killing they specialised in. It had to look a certain way – and after the doctored footage would be released, there would be no uncertainty about the nature of the attack.

She phased out of sight, ghosting past him with the faintest brush against his right arm to let him know she was on her way. He moved behind her, splitting off to clear the nearest room, as she moved swiftly towards the staircase. The blueprints of the house indicated the master bedroom was on the top floor, and she bypassed several guards on her journey upwards.

The hallway lights were down low, the artificial chandelier candles setting off a soft glow. It was clearly having an effect on the guards posted outside the bedroom door. One of which was yawning widely, the other’s eyes closed, cheap earphones spilling the rendition of a French pop song into the hall.

There was always something that flared in her whenever she appeared so suddenly in front of someone that they reacted. It was in the way they shrieked, or flinched, or jumped away. The yawning guard gave a strangled scream, reaching hastily for his jacket pocket as she flickered into sight.

She didn’t give him time to aim – disappearing again as his pistol came out, his shaking hands holding the weapon as he scanned the corridor with wide, fearful eyes. She moved towards the other man, waiting.

The other guard blinked awake slowly, taking in his friend’s position with confusion. “Que se passe-t-il?” **_What’s going on?_** He asked, pulling out his earphones and standing. She held her breath, no more than an inch away from him.

“Il y avait un-” **_There was a-_** She didn’t let the man finish, unsheathing her favoured hunting knife – and slashing viciously at the still-sleepy guard. His friend screamed as he buckled beside him – seemingly struck from nothing, his throat gaping open.

She stepped back dispassionately as he keeled forwards, clutching desperately at his throat. Then, she turned visible again, the sudden flux of sensation flooding her with adrenaline as the man fired at her wildly – but she was already dropping to her knees, rolling towards him with the ease and grace of a thousand hours of practice, and stabbing him in the kneecap. He dropped his pistol as he fell, howling so loud she winced beneath her face mask.

She caught the weapon as it fell, bringing it up swiftly to fire a single, silencing shot under his jaw. She stood, the corpse falling with a dull thud. She could hear commotion beneath her now, the odd scream of pain and near constant gunfire and pounding feet. She paid it no mind. Her partner had it under control.

She moved towards the large oak door, ornately carved, with gold and crystal handles. Beautifully impractical. She phased right through, and entered the quiet room. Soundproofed – both ways. _Of course. _

The bed was huge, taking up a third of the massive room; four posted and done up in emerald silk covers. A lump of a body was slumbering – and she took a silent step closer, close enough to make up the spread of long blonde hair splayed across the plump pillow. _A woman. _She scanned the room for the actual target – eyes catching on the strip of light under the discrete en-suite bathroom door in the corner.

She made no noise as she crossed the room, and pressed her ear to the door for a moment. There was masculine humming, the sound of liquid splashing, and her hand crept for the handle.

There was a moment of stillness in between her bursting through the door and the realisation of Dupuy that there was a stranger in his home. He was urinating, striped boxers around his ankles, and his eyes went wide – mouth falling open in a sudden and unexpected shriek. She scowled, and leapt for him, bringing up her knife in the same motion, and slamming it into his sternum. All it did was make him scream louder, and she drew back the knife again, stabbing it into his lungs this time – making him wheeze in shock, blood bubbling at the corner of his lips.

The momentary chaos had been enough to distract her – and as something pierced her outer uniform and ripped through her shoulder; the main sensation she felt was not pain – though that was very evident as whatever had stabbed her, went right through what felt like her axillary nerve and into her deltoid – but instead, a burning irritation. _Foolish_. She thought, dropping Dupuy bodily, knife still stuck in his torso – and turning to grab at the blonde woman who had stabbed her.

She was already shrieking and wailing at an unimaginable volume before she had reached her – fleeing back into the bedroom, stark naked and crazed. She caught up to her quickly, fisting her good hand in her bleached blonde hair, and dragging her harshly to a stop. She clenched her jaw, fighting the warring anger and pain to find her cool. _Nothing but the mission._

She kept her grip on the woman’s hair, and slammed her head into one of the bed’s posters hard enough to knock the woman unconscious, slumping over onto the floor as she released her.

She took a moment, gritting her teeth and breathing hard through her nose. She was bleeding through her uniform; though it was ruined the moment the weapon stabbed through it. She’d hear about it from her handler later. She turned, lumbering back towards the dying man in the bathroom.

She stabbed him a few more times for good measure, with different blades. The more people looked involved, the better. She turned him over, preserving just a little of his modesty and dignity, and stood.

The dulled gunshots had stopped, and she turned – and as if on cue, the bedroom door opened; her partner stepping through. “Законченный?” **_Finished? _**He asked, approaching the unconscious woman and crouching beside her, looking her over. “Женщина?” **_The woman?_** He cast her a look, stilling slightly at the sight of her wound.

She shook her head. “Никто. Осложнение.” **_Nobody. A complication._** She responded, and he stood, pulling out his gun – firing one shot without looking. The woman twitched, blood blooming across the carpet.

“Вы не очистили комнату?” **_You didn’t clear the room?_** He asked her, and she could practically see his frown behind his face mask. She hoped he could sense her own scowl as he approached her, turning her roughly around to examine her shoulder. She didn’t flinch, though his probing made pain flare white hot down her arm.

“Конечно я сделал. Она не была угрозой.” **_Of course I did. She wasn't a threat._** She spat, and wrenched herself out of his grip.

He let her go, but moved to the bathroom, stepping over Dupuy as if he was a carpet and rummaging through the cabinets, emerging with a bandage. “Вы должны были нейтрализовать ее.” **_You should have neutralised her._**

She was already undoing her uniform as he approached her, and she shrugged it off her shoulder violently, the fabric tearing further. His hands weren’t gentle, but they were careful as he eased the weapon out of her shoulder, dropping it into her waiting hand. She eyed the ornate hairpin covered in her blood. It was made of gems, and covered in gold leaf. She pocketed it.

He wrapped the bandage tight, both hands ghosting over her skin and under and around her arm. The differing temperatures between the metal and his flesh made goose bumps rise on the back of her neck. They were both silent as she redid her uniform, watching him go through the room one last time, staging the scene.

The rest of the house looked like the aftermath of a horror film – bullets, bodies and blood strewn through the otherwise immaculate rooms. She examined the work critically, and he waited behind her, until she nodded and they kept moving. They left out the back – him with one hand on the back of her neck squeezing her slightly, keeping her focussed, her with one arm dangling uselessly and her other hand clenched into a fist.

It was a struggle to get them both out and away unseen – and as soon as they crossed the back wall out into the parkland behind the property, she released the phase, nearly collapsing into the grass, gasping for breath. She swayed unsteadily, folded in half. Her heart was pounding behind her eyes, the edges of her vision grey.

Her partner waited.

Eventually, she straightened. She was glad, suddenly, irrationally, for the trees around them, sparse and thin though they were – they gave her an odd sense of security, like it had hidden her weakness.

“У нас сорок пять минут.” **_We have forty-five minutes._** He said quietly, turning to the stretch of road just visible through the parkland. “Мы должны бежать.” **_We’ll have to run._**

She clenched her jaw in frustration. If not for the woman, they’d be on schedule. She nodded once, letting him lead the way out of the trees, picking up speed as they approached the road.

He was faster than her. It was just… the way it was. Just like she phased, he was impossibly strong and fast – a by-product of whatever they had done to him, along with his metal arm. She sometimes wondered if he had been one-armed all of his life, or if they’d taken it. She supposed it didn’t really matter. Nothing really mattered but the mission.

He had to slow for her, hanging back on corners to make sure she was still following, casting quick looks over his shoulder on the straights. Returning without her wasn’t an option. And she couldn’t ever leave him behind either. They weren’t just partners – they were each other’s guarantees. They’d been trained to keep each other in line; with _extreme_ prejudice. She wasn’t sure what he knew about her, just as he didn’t know how she’d been taught to take him in.

But they made it – they always made it.

Her handler moved to her quickly, casting a cursory look at her bound injury before strapping her collar back on and powering up her cuffs. She held his disapproving gaze as the sudden flux on electricity made her tired limbs twitch. “Слоппи.” **_Sloppy._** He hissed distastefully, and jerked his head in the direction of the van. She clambered in slowly, struggling to find her balance in her exhausted state.

The medic moved to her, shoving her roughly around to gain access to the wound. She grunted, biting down on her bottom lip to prevent any other sounds to escape. Her partner took a seat next to her, and she stared hard at the red outline of the star on his shoulder, blinking away tears welling up in her eyes automatically. The image of it was already so familiar, but now it imprinted itself behind her eyelids as she sat through their debriefing silently, forcing herself to stay conscious.


	3. Paris, 1956

** _11th May, 1956._ **

** _HYDRA Holding Facility #13_ **

** _22:16._ **

* * *

She used to have no concept of time, before him.

It used to be indeterminate periods of time spent in her room, training or sleeping. The only time she would get an idea of it all was on missions. There she would catch glimpses of the world outside; woman in skirts, and then in pants, and then skirts again, buildings and automobiles changing and evolving, the sun or the moon in the heavens, though once it had been neither of them, and a single black expanse of sky.

But apart from those moments, time slipped and stuck by; she was syrup in a jar, sometimes slowly trickling by; other times advancing in leaps and bounds depending on the needs of her superiors. She was four blank walls, electricity, mindless pain and missions.

When he had come, she became something else too, she became the waiting; impatient and patient. She became the watcher, the pacer, the stirring of something that could have been anticipation – but she’d never considered emotion before, so she wasn’t sure.

When he came, she was able to understand that time _was_ there, that the gaps between when she saw him and when she didn’t meant great leaps of time were passing. When she saw him, she knew that there was a mission. When she saw him, she knew that time would start again.

Her room was designed to keep her in – concrete from walls to floor to ceiling, reinforced with metal running a constant electric current, a door with a lock and handle on only one side, a basin with no faucet, and a bunk bed with no railing. It was here she spent every minute not spent on the practice mat or out in the field, alone. It was only after he had come that it began to change.

She stood as the door began to click, the notification that someone was opening it from the other side. She turned – as per her training – and put her hands on the wall above her head in a traditional surrender. The door opened, and there was a stumbling crash the next, and a harsh voice; “выспаться.” **_Sleep it off._**

She waited until the door closed before she turned to look at the person sprawled on her floor. Her partner was still blue-tinged with the frost of the sleep-chamber, his eyes half-shut, limbs weak. It was a familiar sight. The first time he’d been delivered to her like this, she hadn’t known what to do. Now, it was habit to roll her partner onto his back, ignoring his faint attempt to fight her off, and scoop up handful of water and sprinkle it onto his face. It always roused him enough to stop seeing her as a threat, and allow her to bundle him over onto the lower bunk. He would stay in the bed until it was time to leave, leaving her plenty of time to ready herself.

But today, she only made it halfway through her usual stretches when he sat up suddenly. “Deine schulter.” **_Your shoulder._** He said lowly, in German.

She turned to look at him slowly, still folded in half at her waist. “Was ist damit?” **_What about it?_** She asked warily. When he had first come, he hadn’t known Russian, but could speak more German than she had. It was still strange, however, that he was speaking it now – let alone the fact he was asking about her shoulder.

“Es ... war – _ist_ verletzt?” **_It... was – is injured? _**He asked hesitantly, seemingly even more confused about his sudden line of questioning than she was. She straightened, looking uncomfortably at the door, idly wondering if this was some kind of test.

“Ja. Es war.” **_Yes. It was._** She looked at him properly, noting the faintly hazy look to his normally laser-focussed eyes. It was a little disconcerting. “Aber es wurde behandelt. Du hast es selbst verbunden.” **_But it was treated. You bandaged it yourself._**

They held each other’s gaze for a long moment, both of them unwilling, _unable_, to look away. Finally though, he slumped back down, eyes shutting as he rolled to face to wall. His breathing evened out not long after, but she remained where she was.

This had never happened before. Not in all the time they’d been together.

There was no time to consider it, as not long after, the door opened again – and her handler entered, affixing her collar and cuffs, and leading her from her room. The door slammed behind her with an air of finality, though she knew she would see him soon.

* * *

She didn’t actually see him until the middle of their mission.

Paris was almost as warm as Algeria this time of year, and the streets were bustling. It made things more difficult; considering they had a whole envoy of targets, and the destination was the centre of the city, in broad daylight.

The Algerian Government had deemed it necessary to send the envoy to the Peace Conference, in light of the tragic events and growing civil war – to beg for protection, for reason, for resources. In short, they were sending their best weasels, their richest and brightest – the only ones who truly desired French occupancy within Algeria.

She and her partner had vastly different roles; he was to be controlling the explosion that would flip and hopefully destroy the limousine the weasels were travelling in, whilst she would be responsible for stopping their hearts before the crash. They didn’t have any room for error – if one survived the explosion, then it was a failed mission.

Which was why she had been curled in the admittedly large trunk of the limousine, mourning the lack of fresh air, counting seconds in her head, as her partner intermittently grunted out street names as the limousine continued its journey. From a crack above the bumper, she could see the blue lights of the police escort that followed the envoy closely. It was likely that they would be affected by the explosion.

** _“Avenue de l’Europe.”_ **

She rolled, phasing into nothing – through the car seat, through two bodies, until she had a spot to crouch on, right in the centre of the limousine. Around her, the men – only men, though that was no surprise – were laughing, notes discarded, ties loosened, hands clutching champagne glasses, looking careless. They were careless.

** _“Пару минут.” Two minutes_ ** _._

Her partner drawled a warning, and she snapped into action without another thought. She reached for the man nearest her, intangible and invisible – hand disappearing into his chest, until she found what she was looking for.

Consider; the sensation of arm wrestling – the way you squeeze against the firm fleshiness of your opponent’s hand, feeling the way their muscles move as you attempt to slam their hand down.

Squeezing the life out of a human heart felt much the same. She had to strain, but only just – fingers tightening a deadly vice around the wet throbbing organ. There was; as always, the faint flip of nausea she only got when ending a life like this. It was different, somehow, to using a gun, a knife, a garrotte. Being so close, feeling the pulse of human life, and directly stopping it – watching their eyes as fear drained away to horrible understanding and then to nothing as the life left them.

She was already moving to the next man, before they realised their colleague wasn’t simply slumping in his seat – reaching through the side of his rib-cage, clutching at his heart and stilling it. The limousine erupted into chaos in the next minute, and the sudden flare of noise and movement startled her, even in the grey-drained world of her invisible intangibility. It made it even harder to stay hidden, and for a moment, she caught a glimpse of herself in another man’s irises; ghoulish mask glowing unnervingly. He didn’t have time to scream.

When she would give her report, she would say that it happened quickly and methodically. She would say that she exerted control over the situation and made it to the rendezvous point on time.

She wouldn’t mention the exhaustion that set in, the way she had to grapple with two of them, one foot on the steering wheel to keep the car steady. She wouldn’t mention slamming her face into one of them until he stopped moving, thermal goggles so splattered with blood she could only feel her way around to the last of them – putting her hands around his fat neck and squeezing until he was dead. She wouldn’t say that she had to put all her energy into phasing out of the car just as the explosion flipped and destroyed the limousine – shockwaves sending her flying. She wouldn’t mention her pathetic crawl out of sight and off the road, praying that the chaos was enough to hide her figure as she dragged herself into the bushes of the hotel garden that overlooked the street.

She lay there, panting, trembling. Everything ached, and her head throbbed under her mask. Suddenly, her uniform was far too heavy, and even the prospect of sitting upright seemed an impossibility. New sirens were approaching the scene, and she could hear voices, bystanders and law-enforcement alike, far too close for comfort.

She rolled over, bringing up her hand to wipe away the blood that was beginning to congeal over her goggle ports. Her gloves were still wet with the slick bright arterial blood of her target’s hearts, and she only managed to clear some of the gore. At least she had more range of vision. Her own breath was loud in her ears, and it was only after she focussed on regulating it did she realise the other audial anomaly; the faint hum of her broken communication unit.

Her head felt as foggy as her goggles, and it took her longer than it should have to fall back into protocol. Where was the rendezvous point?

_She still had time. She had to have time._

They were supposed to monitor the scene and report from the rendezvous until the next dawn. 06:14. Yes, she still had time. She levered herself upright and, sticking low to the ground, broke into a stumbling run away from the sirens. Parc Balbi was almost a straight line directly south from her current position. She could only hope she wasn’t seen. She wasn’t sure she had the energy to hide herself.

Finally, she made it – scaring a group of pigeons as she emerged from a bush. There was a park bench that looked tempting, but a burst of laughter from a group of women walking across the lake made her change course.

The public bathroom stunk; even through her air-filtration system. But it was dark and quiet, and with the last of her energy, she slammed the door shut, jamming the handle shut as best as she could. She lent back against the wall, and focussed on her breathing. She was tired.

Far away, she could still hear the sirens, could hear the chirping of birds, the wet noises of the plumbing and lake. The stall opposite her was tiled in green, and through the mess of her mask, she could just make out a line of the black scrawled graffiti. **Nourrir les sans-abri.**_ Feed the homeless._

The sound of the handle jiggling made her startle, heart kicking back into high gear as the door creaked ominously. She propelled herself forwards and into the stall, clambering up onto the seat as the door opened. It was almost painful to disappear, like dancing upon broken toes and strained muscles. She held her position, held her invisibility as footsteps approached her position.

In the grey world of her invisibility, her vision was even further impeded – and for a moment, she didn’t recognise the hulking figure that had paused at the mirrors, just in front of her stall. It was the dull gleam of his fingers as he turned slightly – almost as if hearing something. She let out her breath in something like relief, and his movement was just as sudden, masked eyes staring unseeingly at her position.

For a second she panicked, unable to reappear – like a muscle cramped in one painful position. She pushed, and as she came back into being – making her partner twitch in faint surprise – she began to fall forwards out of her crouch.

He was already underneath her, saving her from faceplanting, and the sudden gravity shift made her head swim again.

“Вы не были ясны.” **_You weren’t clear_**_._ It wasn’t a question. He sat her down beside the sink, pushing her head back to rest against the wall.

“Я видел?” **_Was I seen?_** She asked quietly. He had turned on the faucet, and was unzipping the small first aid kit.

He turned back to her, holding a wet bandage. “Нет. Твой костюм.” **_No. Your suit._** He said by way of explanation, and for the first time since the explosion, she became aware of the faint air-flow against her knees and thighs. Her collision with the ground must have scraped right through the tough leather. The touch of the bandage to her exposed flesh made her grit her teeth. It stung, and he wasn’t gentle as he dug out the dirt and gravel that had collected in and on her skin. “Что случилось?” **_What happened?_**

“Я-” **_I-_**

She hesitated.

They couldn’t see each other’s faces – and for that she was glad. She knew the face of the man behind his mask, just as he knew hers – and yet the physical distance between them had never been so small, or so evident as it was now – in the light of her failure. If she told him, actually told him, that she’d felt so weak that she’d resorted to messy violence, that she had barely made it out, that she had jeopardised their mission with her own shortcomings – there was nothing to say that he wouldn’t report it directly to their superiors.

They were weapons, and a faulty weapon had no place in an arsenal.

“Мы в безопасности.” **_We’re secure_**_._ It was a phrase she’d heard from him many times, had said herself on almost every mission. They were safe, they were out of range, they were successful. Now – she thought it might have meant that they were alone, that this… this was private.

Her uniform made a faint creaking noise as she raised her head slightly to align her goggles with the dark glass of his mask’s eyes. “Я не мог удержать это.” **_I couldn’t hold it_**_. _He said nothing, but after a moment, he lifted the now red stained bandage to her goggles and began to clear off the glass. “Я был слабым.” **_I was weak_**_._

“Не слабость. Они просят слишком много.” **_Not weakness. They ask too much._**

They both stilled, and she felt her eyes go wide, muscles tensing as if anticipating a blow. That was insubordination, and they both knew it. Slowly, he lowered his hand, and she tracked its movement to the knife at his hip. He was just as wary as she was. She’d never heard him say such a thing, had never even considered _thinking_ such a thing. It had always been made clear to her, for as long as she could remember; what was commanded was to be done, what was desired was to be given. There were no exceptions, no excuses, and no exclusions.

“Мы в безопасности.” **_We’re secure_**_. _She parroted him quietly. There was another long silence, before he nodded once, almost imperceptibly.

Over his shoulder, she could make out another line of graffiti.

**Seulement ensemble nous sommes forts.**

_Only together we are strong._


	4. Texas, 1963

**November 20th, 1963.**

**Hydra Holding Facility #13**

* * *

His hand caught her around the throat in mid-air, the shock of it more disorientating than the sharp loss of breath. He threw her mercilessly, and she slipped back into visibility as she went, saving the energy and focus for her landing, using her own momentum to flip herself before she crashed gracelessly, landing lightly on the balls of her feet and one hand instead.

He didn’t give her anytime to recover, already advancing. The practice mat was damp and slippery from their combined sweat, and there were a few drops of blood from his nose; which she had crushed earlier. She waited for him, straightening and feinting a defensive pose as he swung. The odd sensation of his fist passing straight through her was familiar, as was the way he automatically over-corrected his posture to save his loss of balance as his punch went nowhere. She was already moving, though, stepping through him and dancing around him – still intangible. She knew what he would do next, and ducked under his roundhouse, solidifying and jabbing at the side of his head, catching his ear sharply. He shook his head just once, but she knew his ear was probably ringing, and disappeared, taking advantage of his slight hearing loss to run a few paces backwards to catch her breath.

Whilst she wasn’t mortally weak, with strength that beat the other men on the base, and a quickness that was far from average, he was stronger and faster than her, and his stamina was more impressive. In a one-on-one fight, they weren’t matched. The advantage of her abilities gave her an edge that allowed them to combat each other on a relatively even field. Most training matches ended in draws, though she had been known to catch him off guard, and he had overpowered her more than a few times.

When they first trained together, they hadn’t held back – unsure what the line was, unsure of the other’s abilities, him still unsure of his arm’s limits, and her unsure just what threat he posed. They’d seriously damaged each other before they’d been separated. She could still remember the visceral snap of her femur between his metal fingers, the dangerous blue his face had gone and the wheezy breaths he had taken after she’d crushed his windpipe.

Now, of course, there was a faint air of relaxation to the mindless exercise. Years of fighting the same fight tended to do that – and she knew his movements and limits just as well as she knew her own.

They ended up locked in a stalemate, her with one hand inside his chest, him with his metal hand around her throat. They could both crush the other.

“Солдаты. Дух.” **_Soldier. Ghost_**_._

Separated, she took a quiet, steadying breath. She was tired, despite her body’s rigid at-attention stance. One of their senior joint handlers was waiting in the doorway. “Готовьтесь к миссии. Вы переезжаете в 18:00.” **_Prepare for the mission. You move at 18:00_**_._ He was holding a familiar manilla file, which she knew would contain only two things; a mission brief, no more than a paragraph, which include their emergency rendezvous, drop-off and pick-up, and a singular high resolution image of their target.

He held it out to her with the tips of his fingers, retracting his hands immediately when she touched it. She could read his disgust in the slight wrinkle of his nose, in the condescension in his eyes. His uniform told her he was a commander of something. She – more so than her more human partner – received the bulk of revulsion. Her partner attracted, at times, a certain smugness along with the usual disdain, which she didn’t understand. She could hear him approach, soundless to the untrained ear – and opened it wide for his benefit.

She was sure her immediate surprise at seeing the all-too familiar face of their target was echoed, as he gave a small intake of breath, that only she could hear. Of course, they both knew the man smiling out from the page; President John Fitzgerald Kennedy of the United States of America was hardly an unknown figure.

She looked up to meet the hard eyes of her partner. He gave her a knowing look; this would most likely be one of, if not, _the_ most prolific and difficult missions in their service.

“Понял, сэр.” **_Understood, sir_**_._

* * *

The crowd was loud, loud enough that she could even hear it through her partner’s communication unit from where he was positioned at the knoll overlooking the road, and hear it herself, despite being above street level in the Book Depository. It created a weird feedback loop. The man next to her, despite the death sentence on his head, looked calm. Lee Harvey Oswald had volunteered to be Hydra’s scapegoat with little to no hesitance. In this high-profile assignation, it was a necessity for the Americans to have someone to blame. But – there would be no loose ends. Oswald would be dead before the week ended.

The shot would be taken by Oswald, as would the fall – she and her partner were security, back-up if Oswald failed. She could foresee the outcome; no man shot with the accuracy of the Winter Soldier – and it was more than likely that he would have to finish the mission. She was only to oversee Oswald’s position before meeting up with her partner to get them out unseen.

Still – her nerves were singing in a way she was unused to. She tapped lightly at the hilt of her knife on her belt, counting down the last sixty-seven seconds, before standing. Her sudden movement made Oswald jump, eyes going wide.

Not as calm as he appeared.

She could respect his poker face. “Are you prepared?” she asked him. English felt uncomfortable on her tongue, and she knew she had an accent. He blinked at her, and she saw the flicker of fear there. “Comrade. You do the Soviet Union a great service. You will be welcomed as a hero.” He swallowed thickly, but nodded, fingers moving unsteadily to the rifle already angled at the street. She nodded, and left as silently as she had come.

The chaos erupted as she was winding through the crowd. The first gunshot went too wild – not a killing shot, as she’d suspected. The second shot that came from her partner followed shortly – and the crowd was in such a disarray that she lost sight of his position, caught up in avoiding the panicked civilians. Americans were a loud bunch; self-centred, she thought idly, watching as a group of men scrambled away from the road, abandoning a stroller and a young mother in their desire to save their own skins. Couldn’t they see it wasn’t about them? They were hardly important enough to think to fear for their lives in such a targeted attack. She stepped over a balling woman, and began her walk up the slope. In her grey-realm, she couldn’t see the fine blue of the sky, nor the sweet green of the grass. She imagined they were quite vivid.

Her partner was waiting for her, back pressed tight against the knoll, gun at the ready – almost flat in his defensive position. She was, she could admit, a little aghast at their command’s faith in the pair of them, or perhaps their audacity to leave her partner open and vulnerable, in clear visibility of the light of day.

Not that vulnerable was a word she would ever use to describe her partner.

She bent over him.

Perhaps he too was feeling the pressure, as he gave no evidence of noticing or sensing her arrival as he usually did. It was impossible to tell behind his mask, but she pictured his sharp eyes roaming the street in front of him, his ears perked for any noise from behind. The sirens of police backup were getting closer, and she bent – reaching out and laying her hand over his flesh hand.

He startled, beginning to stand, even as she wrapped him in the grey-realm and he understood she was there.

It was just in time, as the first of the civilians began to spill over the knoll, running from the carnage on the road behind. He slowed with her, and they slipped in and out of the crowd sedately. His rifle was hot, and one-handed, he began to stow it away. Despite it being of American make, he seemed just as comfortable with it as he did with his customary Russian made weapon. They were to wait, to ascertain that Oswald had been taken into custody. Then they could go.

She wasn’t sure she liked America – it was too loud and too hot – and for the first time in a while, felt the echoing of impatience. She wanted to go back, back to what she knew.

Her partner, surprisingly, seemed unaffected. In fact, as they began to wind through more residential streets, he began to pull ahead slightly, until she was just half a step behind, trying to match his elongated stride.

She frowned behind her mask, as he slowed suddenly, in the middle of a crossing, head turning to track the movement of three children playing in the nature strip on the sidewalk. She stilled with him, unable to let him go.

She didn’t recognize the children, didn’t recognize the scene of friendship – after all, she had nothing to compare it to – but even so, she knew that children playing was normal. Her partner, however, was staring as if he’d never seen a child in his life.

One of them, the smallest, with bright blue eyes and a mop of curly straw-coloured hair was shouting something about Nazis, clutching what she recognized to be a dustbin lid, painted in a strange pattern; circles of red and white, and a spot of blue in the centre, with a white star that was slightly lop-sided. The other two held sticks and were hitting at him mercilessly, but the laughter between all three assured her that the interaction was positive.

Her partner wavered, a full-body shudder that she could feel under her hand and she tensed, unsure what was about to happen. She took a breath, opening to her mouth to speak-

The sudden roar of a car’s engine from behind them made her startle, clutching at her partner with both hands and just in time – pulled them both into intangibility. The car roared through them, and beeped at the children as it pulled into the house’s driveway, making them drop their toys and run eagerly towards the vehicle.

She shoved him forwards, forcibly propelling him out of the middle of the road, and kept pushing him until he began to walk again. He shook his head once, and she scowled.

“Что это было?” **_What was that? _**She hissed, holding a hand over the mic on her chest, and hoping the sound was muffled enough.

“I don’t- I don’t know.” He responded, in English. For the first time, she really noticed how perfect his accent was; like he was truly an American. Something flipped uneasily in her stomach, and she dropped her hand from her mic, propelling him forwards instead.

The quicker they got out of here, the better.

* * *

“Отчет о миссии.” **_Mission report._**

Her partner’s handler sounded almost bored, eyes not on them, but on a pile of documents in front of him. Her own handler had sent them through, on the phone to what she presumed was higher command. She could make out Chinese characters and German on some of the papers. Idly, she wondered just what Hydra wanted with China and Germany. She stopped herself quickly. Idle thoughts were not hers to have.

He looked up, frowning – and even as she dropped her eyes hurriedly – she realised why he was confused. There had been no response. She chanced a look at her partner, noting that the odd glaze over his eyes was still present. There was nothing in their training to suggest that one of them was more dominant than the other, that one held a higher position of command than the other. She may have been active for longer than her partner, but it meant nothing – just as it meant nothing that he was the one to report, he had always just seemed to speak first.

Something told her, though, that this sudden silence from him meant something. It meant something she didn’t understand – and though she went through her service knowing near nothing, her partner had never been a variable. She thought she knew him as well as she knew herself. That is to say – not well, but still better than she knew anything else. It made her stomach turn, both at the abnormality of his behaviour and the sudden realisation that if she could sense it, then perhaps their handlers could too.

“Отчет миссии; 22 ноября 1963 г.” **_Mission report; 22 November 1963_**_. _She spoke suddenly and almost loudly into the building tension. “Цель ликвидируется в соответствии с параметрами миссии.” **_Target liquidated according to mission parameters_**_. _She hesitated, gauging the room. Her partner’s handler was looking at her now, eyes narrowed. “Президент Джон Фицджеральд Кеннеди. Умер в 14:30. Центральное поясное время в Далласе, штат Техас. Активы были извлечены по графику.” **_President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Deceased at 2:30 p.m. Central Standard Time in Dallas, Texas. Assets were extracted on schedule._**

There was a long silence.

“Очень хорошо. Сообщить в казарму**.” _Very well. Report to the barracks_**_._

She relaxed minutely at his dismissal, suddenly aware of the way her muscles had been aching, held at the ready – on the defensive. Her partner lurched out of the room, jerkily. She followed him with her customary silent step, but instead of watching her surroundings, she couldn’t help but keep her eyes on the back of his head.

It was lowered, and there was a heaviness to his step she didn’t recognize.

She didn’t recognize _him_.


	5. New Mexico/New York 1973

**March 12th, 1973**

**Hydra Holding Facility #13**

* * *

It had been a long time since she’d seen her partner.

Perhaps some of his odd dissonance had disturbed his handler, and they’d seen fit to condition him further. It seemed to be a mark of their difference; how little she needed reconditioning, and how much he did. Of course, she had always suspected – he had not been born to Hydra like she had been – it showed sometimes, in his initially rough Russian, in his unique sniper’s eye, in the strength of his body that didn’t belong to the serum; it was the mark of someone who had not known hunger, or at least had not known hunger like the Russian people had. No, her partner had been _re-formed_ by Hydra. From what – she did not know. She suspected she never would.

Not that it mattered.

It couldn’t matter to her – and it _didn’t _for Hydra.

They had means and methods of subjecting control over their weapons that were beyond her understanding. Her own conditioning had been – from what she remembered – mostly non-invasive. However, she knew what the Chair meant. She’d heard her partner scream in the Chair before.

But she hadn’t heard him scream since their last mission. Maybe there just hadn’t been use for them. Thinking… positively, if that was what it was, seemed to make the time go just a little faster.

Just a little.

There was a saying, or maybe it was a passage, perhaps just a tangle of conversation she had heard – she wasn’t sure – but a few words seemed to stand out to her; _golden hours are hours spent hoping._ She didn’t know what it meant, didn’t know where it had come from, but something about it held warm in her stomach, and she murmured the words to herself when time began to drag her down, when every passing moment seemed an age – and when something like longing began to build in her.

The endless stretch of things, as always, came to a grinding halt when her door opened, and he was thrust into her monotony.

She went through the motions, cupping her hands around the freezing water that was not much cooler than her, rousing him, and dragging him to her bunk. This time though, she broke her own routine, with something like guilt – like a child stealing from the cookie jar, she knew it was wrong – and yet this time, she hovered over him.

She bent over him, so close to his sleeping face that she could near feel the warmth of his skin on her lips. She studied him, running her eyes over the planes of a face she knew more intimately than her own.

He was symmetrical, cold looking with his eyes open – they were like little chips of ice, little patches of a stormy sky – his jaw strong, marred by stubble they only ever seemed to trim, hair a few inches longer than their last mission. He was thinner now than he had been when she’d first met him – cheekbones sharp and chin strong. They didn’t eat – at least, she didn’t – and perhaps that was why.

He was… nice to look at.

She could separate the reason _why_ from what she had ascertained from studying the reactions of others. The female officers sometimes lingered on his face, on his body – longer than they did with her. That was what something she had been taught about; _attraction_, an animal reaction to the physicality of another. It was something she had never been given leave to have. Which is why she didn’t linger on his face the same way – because though she couldn’t deny that sometimes a tiny flare of _something_ would occur after their periods of separation – it certainly wasn’t attraction. And he must have been attractive, for those female officers to linger so. Attraction had been described to her, so long ago now that she couldn’t be sure she completely remembered it – but what was said of the 'heat' and 'passion' that she did remember wasn’t what she felt when she looked at him.

It was… comfort.

It was the knowledge of his utter reliability, the reminder she wasn’t alone, it was the selfish knowledge that she could depend upon him and be depended on in return.

Perhaps.

She would never say so out loud – _couldn’t – _because she knew sentiment was the one thing, the _one thing,_ she could never have. It endangered the mission, endangered her life, endangered her position, endangered her service.

Still – the little tug of unease didn’t settle.

Because, how could she be sure the man lying here was her partner? There had been something in his eyes the last time she had seen him that had unsettled her.

She couldn’t risk it.

* * *

_She had been right to worry._

Electricity – both literal and metaphorical – was racing through her. The yelling from coming from her handler and her- her- her _partner’s- _

_– _her lips drew away from her teeth involuntarily, a silent snarl making her shudder –

Her partner’s handler had not stopped. They were furious, near frantic.

Because this had never happened before, because it should never _have_ happened.

For the first time, The Winter Soldier had failed to make the extraction point. For the first time, Ghost had showed up alone, and without explanation – because she had none.

She had _nothing_.

There’d been no warning, no signs – but for her own suspicion she’d carried from the last mission – but suddenly she had been on her own, and he had disappeared with no warning, and she’d been forced to return by herself or risk failing extraction herself. Her face still stung from the blows delivered by her handler, his fear and fury making him lash out, and a small trickle of blood from her split lip was tickling the skin of her neck.

It had been routine – all of it – the drop off, the mission itself, the clean-up.

New Mexico had been sweltering, a dry heat that she could sense through her uniform, and their target’s house was in the desert, surrounded by nothing but sand, sparse plantation and the glare of the sun. Senator Harry Baxton lived in a house with many windows, and they had reflected sunlight into her goggles with force. Her partner had seemed unshaken, seemed normal as he went through the motions. She cleared the perimeter, secured the documents needed, and had returned to the roof of the house in time to see her partner take the shot, to see the Senator topple into his large pool. It was only as she had set about destroying the security footage did she realise that she was alone, that her partner had disappeared.

The day’s still heat had seemed to coalesce, and sweat had begun to roll down her back, made her palms itch. She had searched the house twice, and perhaps that had been a mistake, that had only have given him another few minutes head start. She ranged as far from the house as she’d dared, following the secondary tracks of their vehicle in the direction he must have driven before she had faltered, too afraid to follow, too afraid to return without him.

“Бесполезное существо.” **_Useless creature._**

Her handler’s voice cut through her useless rumination with the same sharpness as his sudden slap. Her head jerked awkwardly to the side, caught painfully with her thick collar. “Ты позволил ему уйти.” **_You let him go._** It wasn’t a question, because she _had_ let him go – or at least she’d failed to stop him, which was essentially the same thing.

She protested her incontestable failure anyway. “Нет, командир.” **_No, commander. _**It only served to stoke his ire, and his fist slammed into her head again. She let her head hang, knowing any eye contact would further enrage him.

“Вы знаете гарантии. Вы не наняли их. Ты позволил ему уйти.” **_You know the safeguards. You did not employ them. You let him go. _**His voice brokered her truth. It was true, she knew the safeguards. There was no sense trying to protest her innocence, because surely he was right. She had failed the mission. She had failed; and her consequences were clear. “Вы вернете актив обратно.” **_You will bring the asset back. _**He told her shortly, and turned in place. Her head sagged a little further, in relief, in exhaustion. It was hardly a guarantee of mercy – but some part of her hoped for it, hoped for redemption.

She _would_ bring him back.

She _had_ to bring him back

* * *

If it had been anybody else, she thought she would have found him easier.

But if she had been anybody else, she thought that they wouldn’t have found him at all.

It was clear that her partner was not in his right mind. Of course, he was still as careful and methodical as always, but there was a randomness to his movements she didn’t recognise, a speed and dedication to his strange drive north-east that she didn’t understand. He was moving by night, and that meant she was able to catch him up, despite his speed – unlike her, he could not move entirely unnoticed during the day – but he didn’t tire like she did.

She lost his trail, for an entire day in Kentucky, took a wrong turn – assuming he would cut a path through a patch of national forest. She had been wrong, and it was only by luck that she had picked up his trail again, as she stumbled, invisible, into an empty diner right on the border of West Virginia.

The woman wearing a little yellow dress and white apron was talking, gushing really, to the unimpressed looking cook, about the ‘_handsome hobo_,’ who had called her ‘_doll’_ and then ‘_got all shy, and kinda spacey_.’ She stayed only long enough to gulp down several desperate mouthfuls of water from their sink before she was on the move again. She wasn’t used to being so long outside – out in the world.

It was strange.

Just once, on the third day, she’d taken a glove off – and touched the bark of a tree, the rough but smooth road beneath her, felt the sunlight on the pale skin of her palm. It had made her head light, and she’d pulled her glove on quickly and kept moving.

The world seemed to be moving quickly; the cars were different, faster. The women were louder, bolder, with short hair and wide smiles and quick anger. The younger ones were calling for change, she had been reading signs, reading news articles, despite the headache that English gave her. She saw people of different cultures together; eating, laughing, some even holding hands – _together._ There was anger in some parts, there was grief in others; they were asking for _love not war, _they were asking for reparations, for _our lost boys in Nam._ Music and noise seemed ever present; America was bursting with noise – they _were really tryin', baby, tryin' to hold back this feeling for so long, _they _never knew me a better time and I guess I never will, oh Lawdy mama those Friday nights-_

America was dizzying and bright, and nothing like her tiny room – which in the face of the big wide spaces and brilliant dazzling beauty around her, really was tiny – and here, time was marked evenly, the sun rose and set at the same time, the minutes ticked by steadily – in fact she could even watch them go, round and round with the hands of a clock. She stole – from the wrist of a man reading a paper – a small clock he had on a leather band around his wrist. She’d never seen such a thing before.

It was with her new-found time that she noticed that she had been dawdling. Her handler noticed too.

He wasn’t in the room with her, but it didn’t stop her from hurriedly stowing the little clock in her boot, feeling its body tick against her ankle. “Дух.” **_Ghost._ **

“командир.” **_Commander._**

An emotion she’d seen on the face of a young teen facing down her belligerent boyfriend made her heart beat a little faster. _Fear_.

“Вы прогрессируете слишком медленно.” **_You are progressing too slowly_**. His voice was far away, and yet too close in her ear. “Есть проблема?” **_Is there a problem?_**

“Н-нет.” **_N-no._**

Her eyes closed, wincing at her verbal hesitation, at her foolish admission of her guilt, her acknowledgement of her failure. Her handler knew her, knew the infliction in her voice was as good as an affirmative.

“Вы знаете, что вас ждет. Не думайте, что отсрочка неизбежного еще больше поразит вас.” **_You know what awaits you. Do not think delaying the inevitable will endear you any further._**

With an audible click, he disconnected from the line. She trembled in place, awash with a sudden cold dread. _Yes, she knew what awaited her for her failure._ She did not linger another beat of her tiny clock’s body – and flew from her temporary hideout like a bat from hell.

* * *

New York.

It was filthy and rampant with the worst of America’s citizens. Nothing endeared it to her – though it was in part due to the icy dread that was still coursing through her, that would fill her until her punishment was over. It was so dirty, so congested with the undesirables that they had been taught to blend with that it was hard to find his path through the underbelly of the city. Here, many a man fit the description she could give; unkempt, a wild look in his eyes, a tendency towards violence. Not that there was anyone to give a description to, none that would talk, and none that would forget their talk without substantial payoff. She couldn’t risk mingling – she knew she stood out in the worst of ways; here where a foreigner’s accent was cause for upset, where every person knew their neighbourhood.

She had to resort now to picking through the trash and rubble of the streets, like the children did on the way to school, like the homeless did looking for scraps of life.

She couldn’t understand what had driven him _here_, of all places.

Here though – one thing was certain – here, his accent was placeable, here she could hear the difference that roughened his words.

It set her teeth on edge.

* * *

She passed a group of prostitutes gossiping on the corner, silently traversing through their fake-furred, cheaply-perfumed cloud of desperate adultery. It was all they could do to attempt to lift themselves from the slum-like accommodations she was currently investigating. No doubt many of them took their businesses into the flophouses, and she was hoping the dosshouses would host her partner – she couldn’t think where else he would be – the street was too dangerous for him; not literally, more in the sense that a homeless man with an arm of metal and superhuman strength would attract more attention than just one other poor soul occupying one of countless rooms would. Recluses tended to make more sense and draw less attention than highly trained street-fighters.

She didn’t bother searching the rooms nearest to the busy street, nor any of the rooms cut off from easy exit points. No – she knew her partner – and no matter what had happened to disturb him so, she knew he would never surrender a vantage point or an escape route.

Her third house of the night provided results.

She was tired; she’d been in her grey realm all night, passing soundlessly and invisibly through walls and doors on her endless search. It took a considerable amount of energy, and she had been running on fumes since she’d hit New York. She’d never been in the field so long. Self-care wasn’t something she’d been taught to practice, and she hadn’t the first clue what to do with the pangs of pain that were gnawing on her belly, nor the tight burn of her throat, or her chafing heels. She was filthy and exhausted, but she was on a mission.

She spotted the hidden pistol on the inside of the bathroom door first, and it prevented any surprise she may have felt when she spotted a familiar form in the tiny room beyond, huddled on a paper-thin mattress, matted hair hanging in front of still awake eyes. He looked thinner, the grime of travel and New York just as thick upon him as it was on her. There was no mistaking the faint gleam of reflected light off the tips of his left hand’s fingers.

She had found him.

“солдат.” **_Soldier._**

She spoke aloud into the room, and his head whipped up. His eyes were bright – but not with the sharpness she knew, with some other light she didn’t recognize. “Who’s there?” His voice was rough, suspicious, the English disturbing.

“Вы должны сообщить в команду. Я здесь, чтобы вернуть тебя...” **_You must report to command. I'm here to return you..._** she trailed off, confused by the way he was shaking his head vehemently.

“I’ve got so many- so many- голоса,” **_Voices,_** he stood unsteadily, “In my head. You’re in my head. You’re always in my head.” He was almost muttering, eyes roving the room. “Zeige dich!” **_Show yourself!_**

The sudden German made her reappear almost involuntarily. His eyes fell upon her instantly, but there was only the dimmest flicker of recognition there, more confusion than anything. She took a slow step forward. She didn’t know what to do, didn’t know who was standing in front of her. “Солдат ... пойдем со мной.”**_ Soldier... come with me. _**He swayed, still erratic. She swallowed thickly, and extended her hand. “Please.” Her voice was shaky, and she coughed – clearing her throat of the sudden tightness. _She didn’t know what to do_.

“I know you – I _know_ you.” He told her, adamantly. “But I don’t-” like a rabid dog, his head snapped to the side as he snarled at himself. She flinched. “Где я?” **_Where am I?_** his sudden vivid focus was on her, the chill in his eyes her partner again. She still couldn’t relax.

“Нью-Йорк. Я следил за тобой здесь - ты покинул середину миссии, помнишь?” **_New York. I tracked you here - you left mid mission, remember? _**She was almost begging, she _needed_ him to remember.

He shook his head again, angry. “I _remember_\- a face. A home, I think – no – Миссия?” **_A mission?_** That clouding was back in his eyes, and she took another step towards him. His head jerked towards her again. “Stay back.”

“Солдат, иди со мной. Вы должны пойти со мной.” **_Soldier, come with me. You must come with me. _**She said again. He took a step away – eyes darting to the window beside him. Panic flared, and she spat out the first of the safeguards that she had known as long as she had known him. “Желание.” **_Longing._**

“NO-!”

He leapt at her, teeth bared, eyes alight in panic that was both her partner’s _and_ the cloudy-eyed man she’d cornered.

They went tumbling to the ground, his full weight landing on her chest. “Ржавый.” **_Rusted._** She wheezed out, trying to free her left hand from under him. If she could just reach his arm –

He growled, rolling them over, and throwing her away from him. She crashed through the thin plaster that separated the bathroom from the main room. Her head was swimming slightly, but she knew she had no time to lie and lick her wounds, forcing herself to her feet and sprinting back towards him, dripping plaster and dust. He was nearly at the window, and she leapt, bringing her legs up to wrap around his neck – twisting her weight around to bring him half to his knees with the momentum. “Печь!” **_Furnace!_** She spat, slamming her fist into the side of his head to bring him the rest of the way down, with a dull crack that made him groan.

His left hand gripped her knee with enough force to make her kneecap slide out of place as he dragged her leg out of its locked position. She grunted, and let go, letting him pull her away. “Стоп-please!” **_Stop_**_-_

The unexpected plea almost worked, as she momentarily forgot the pain in her knee at his voice. She shook her head, trying to clear her _own_ head. “Рассвет.” **_Daybreak._** She told him definitively. He was at the windowsill, and she could see herself reflected in the glass, and half his face – which was crumpled. “Семнадцать.” **_Seventeen._** She took a limping step towards him. His head twitched, all the warning she got before he swiped at her. It was half-hearted at best, and she let it pass through her, head throbbing with exhaustion as she slipped in and out of the grey realm. “Доброкачественный.” **_Benign. _**Her voice wavered, and she moved closer still, slowly reaching up to unclip her helmet. “Девять.” **_Nine._** Her face was as pale as the moon in the reflection, marred by the thin lines of dried and fresh blood. She watched his eyes roaming her face, trying to find her partner in his reflection too. “Возвращение на родину.” **_Homecoming_**. Her voice was a mere whisper now, and slowly, her hands moved to his shoulders, which were shuddering gently. She pressed upon him, and he folded beneath her touch, knees hitting the ground again with a thud. “Один.” **_One._** She told him softly, fingers dancing down over his left shoulder, looking for the panel only she knew about. He flinched as she numbly exposed a portion of his arm, his weapon, a piece of _him_. “Товарный вагон…” **_freight car…_** the faint whine of machinery powering down mirrored the sudden duck of his head, the tension that suddenly left his frame. His metal arm hung limp beside him, useless underneath the dirty cloth he’d wrapped around it.

“Солдат?” **_Soldier?_**

Her voice seemed so loud in the silent room, making her flinch – but the way his voice echoed made her stomach turn;

“Я жду приказаний.” **_Ready to comply._**


	6. Belarus, 1973

**April 20th, 1973**

**Red Room Training Academy, Belarus**

* * *

“снова.” **_Again._**

She stilled at the commanding voice of The Matron, dropping the near limp body of the young girl she had in a chokehold. It was the only title the grey-haired and impossibly ageless woman had given her, and as she was only here in a temporary instructor’s position, there was not an option to ask for more.

She knew she was on thin ice as it was. This position at the Academy wasn’t any sort of reward or experience she was meant to benefit from. This was, for want of a better term, a storage solution. Hydra were still reeling from the mess of her last field mission, and she was near certain they were still dealing with her partner.

They had dealt with her far more swiftly.

The taste of her own blood and bile in her mouth still lingered, just as the screams of her partner bounced around in her skull in every quiet moment.

_They’d bound them both immediately during extraction; harshly and tighter than necessary. Her handler; red with anger and the embarrassment of his asset’s failures and subsequent disapproval from his higher-ups, started in on her near immediately. _

_She supposed it had been somewhat cathartic for him – to rain pain upon her until she couldn’t howl for ripped vocal chords, couldn’t think for the agony she was in, couldn’t see for the blinding sting of sweat and blood, couldn’t hear for the screams from her partner as he was put into the Chair. _

_And then, after tears she couldn’t control began to fall, he had started to recite the Poem, the one that made her seize and dull, the one that made her mind blank – and she forgot to move, to breath, slipping into the fatigued chill of her mind as they preferred it. _

_“Настроения.”_

_**Sentiment**._

_It had been spat at her in disgust – and then they’d spirited her away. Away from his screams, halfway across the nation, and they had dumped her here. _

She’d been in recovery until a few weeks ago.

The faces of the girls there were still imprinted in her feverish, pained memories – little pale curious things, looking in on her through the dim window of her new room. Now, of course, that curiosity had faded. Most regarded her with a faint awed fear she was unused to – the older girls’ cold calculated speculative glances far easier to deal with. She knew what these trained killers were wondering; sizing her up, considering her as an opponent. Though she was taller than most of them, she was thinner and still recovering from the punishment of her handler. Often, they seemed to come to the wrong conclusion.

It gave her a certain satisfaction to pin the ones that had doubted, to bruise the ones that had sneered, to shatter the ones that had been too confident. It would only serve to teach them. It would only serve to keep them alive.

It had become her new reality, her new march of time; children, girls, women – their blood on her hands more often than not as she melded and reshaped them as The Matron commanded. The Red Room was still recovering from the devastation dealt by some American agents some forty years ago, and their satisfaction with the girls was waning with every body bag that was returned to the Academy. The Matron kept her close, like a shadow, and it took her some time to realise that the woman wanted security. The girls grew more tenacious with every generation; she could understand The Matron’s caution. It only took one wrong break to destroy the body.

And break them, she did.

The Black Widow program was harsh and unyielding. The methods employed by the Academy were intense, and not dissimilar to the things Hydra had required of her, back when she’d first started training. She’d been younger than the girls here – but it made their sacrifice no less remarkable. Self-mutilation was expected, limits were pushed every day, and the casual violence of it all managed to catch her off guard more than once; forced to supervise eight-year-olds pressing lighters to their skin, ten-year-olds snapping their own bones, eleven-year-olds ripping out teeth, flesh, hair – pain was a language here.

After months of it, she came to a breaking point, lying awake after disposing of a thirteen-year-old who had refused to eliminate a similarly disappointing candidate. The girl’s cries about her friend, still crying out for her friend, even with her fingers around her throat. _Sentiment_. It thrived, even here.

And she realised all at once, what the pit in her gut was; she _missed_ her quiet, little, timeless room. She missed the objective of a mission. Most of all – she realised, with a sickening sense of horror – she missed _him._

Steady and quick. Reliable and calm. Familiar and allied.

God – she _missed_ him.

It was an ache, a dull ache that drew moisture to her eyes. It frightened her – crying, crying for something that was not hers to want. She had been outside of Hydra’s frozen stasis for too long; here, in this bloody red real world, she had gotten too involved.

And she realised she _hated_ it; hated the Academy, hated hurting the candidates, hated shadowing The Matron like a glorified guard dog, hated the blood on her hands day after day, _hated_ the way it was making her weak.

* * *

**December 15th, 1991**

**Red Room Training Academy, Belarus**

* * *

It was jamais vu, having a manila folder in her hand after so long.

Even her handler, with his familiar watery cold stare – like melting ice, seemed a stranger. It had been eighteen years since she had seen him in person. He looked old. Old and weak. The realisation that she saw him as weak was another unfamiliar jolt in her gut. The Academy had become a home in the last few decades, and with each passing year, Hydra had seemed to fall further and further away. They still checked up on her, of course, she would never cease to be their asset, their weapon, their property; but the Red Room operated under a different power, and here she had grown.

“Дух.” **_Ghost._**

Even his voice was feeble. Her name seemed to hold a lighter weight than it used to, when it fell from his lips. She met his gaze full on – and he twitched. It was near imperceptible, but she caught it. Her training had not failed her, it would never fail her. He was afraid. She could smell it on him, under his anaemic powdery scent; the smell of an ordinary elderly man. “Сэр.” **_Sir._**

Perhaps her voice had been a touch too mocking, because his eyes went to The Matron, who was still sitting at her desk. “Оставь нас.” **_Leave us._** He dismissed her coldly, an edge to his voice that she remembered well. The Matron brokered no disagreement, though she knew The Matron would rankle at her authority being undermined here, within her dominion. The door shut behind her with a soft click, and they were alone.

For a moment, her eyes strayed to his vulnerable throat, to his stiff leg, to his pulse point, to his weak heart. It would be far too easy to kill him, to put a hand on his heart and end him quickly. She could make him suffer too, she thought. She’d grown angry here, in her isolation, in her mock time-out. She’d grown stronger, too.

It was only for a moment; and in the next, he was hastening towards her. His grip was still firm, and she felt a pang of fear in her gut as he grasped her chin and jerked her face down to his. He spat; a glob of warm saliva landing on her cheek. “Вы забыли себя, собака.” **_You forget yourself, dog. _**She jerked in his grasp, fists clenching at her sides, suddenly fighting the restrictions of training she’d long forgotten. To put a hand on a superior officer was to be punished. To speak out of turn was to be punished. “Вы забыли своего хозяина.” **_You forget your master._** She flinched, almost pulled out of his grip, but then he began to speak;

“Солнце погасло, Месяца нет, Заревом алым,” She knew the words, and once she had only known the words, as they had used to fill her head every moment, keeping her cold and steady – keeping her on the mission, under their thumb. Now, she recognised the numb feeling as it came, and shook within his grip. “Запад блестит, Птицы на гнездах, В кущах стада.”

She slid, near boneless, and knelt – knelt as instructed, as expected.

Her voice came from miles away, the words she spoke dredged up from deep within herself, as innate as the poem that brought her back to herself, the poem that turned her into the ghost she was.

“Я жду приказаний.” **_Ready to comply. _**

* * *

It was a little like watching a moving-picture, the ones that were shown on big screens for people to enjoy.

The sensation of watching and experiencing the world as she moved on near autopilot was a phenomenon she had forgotten. Underneath the artificial compliant chill over her, nausea was roiling in her gut. She did not like this sensation of being powerless, of being a passive observer to herself. The active part of her brain, the bit trying to fight through the fog, was powerless. A bigger part of her just wanted to comply; it would be so much easier to just _comply_.

Still – she fought it, though the urge to be sick grew stronger, and her hands trembled.

In the jet, she was strapped back into her uniform, and something about the click of the collar around her neck and the weight of the electric cuffs around her wrists just made her sink deeper. She gagged on nothing as the electricity began to buzz through her. It was unnecessary; for her body was not her own, and she would not have run if she could have. No – this was her handler’s influence. It was dark in the hold, and the lack of light made her helplessness all the more apparent.

And then he appeared, stark against the bright light from the cabins beyond.

She recognised the lines of his body at once; and something like relief flooded her system. He was muzzled and masked, but she could feel the weight of his eyes on her, and knew he could feel her gaze through her own mask. He moved with his usual silent grace, and she tracked his movements as he went first to the technician standing by, presenting his arm to the tired looking man – but keeping his stance open, keeping his face in view, almost facing her.

It was as close to a warm greeting as they could get; and at the faint warmth that flared in her stomach – her nausea doubled two-fold.

“Солдаты. Отведи свой взгляд.” **_Soldier. Avert your gaze._**

The sharp unfamiliar voice made her partner freeze, and slowly turn from her.

She didn’t recognize the hook-nosed man in the doorway. But her partner’s immediate defensive posturing – unconscious or not – told her that he was _very_ familiar with the man.

“Вы оба получили параметры своей миссии,” **_You've both received your mission parameters. _**This man spoke with the vigour of a man with passion. He was young – younger than her handler by more than a few decades, but his face was hard, and his stance was confident. “Призрак, я понимаю, что ты был вдали от своего дома некоторое время - но я должен произвести на тебя впечатление;” **_Ghost, I understand you have been away from your home for some time - but I must impress upon you; _**he moved towards her, fingering a red, leather-bound book. She had never seen it before, but the star emblazoned on the cover made her look towards her partner, towards the red star on his arm. At her movement, he stepped closer still, crouching in front of her, with a deadly smile on his face. With his movement, what looked to be a chain that seemed to be functioning as a bookmark dangled from the spine swung, its brilliant silver catching the little light in the hold. The five-pointed star on the end of the charm was just as iconic, and she shivered at its brilliance as he gently tugged it free from the book.

“Любые ошибки, любые промахи, любое неповиновение будут встречены адским огнем и наказанием, от которого вы никогда не оправитесь. Понимаешь?” **_Any mistakes, any slips, any defiance will be met with hellfire and a punishment you will never recover from. Do you understand?_**

She swallowed, eyes tracking the movement of the silver star as he moved it towards her. His voice was chilling; the tone more threatening than the actual words.

“Понял.” **_Understood._** She replied lowly, muscles tensing involuntarily as he drew her left hand away from her side. On the back of her glove, a new feature was sparking slightly; a hollow divot in her suit that she had not seen before. With deft fingers, he pressed the star charm into place, and the sudden quiet voice that began to echo within her mask made her still.

“_Светлое море, С небом слилось, С тихостью волны, Плещут на брег, Кроткие зыби, Чуть-чуть дрожат. Солнце погасло, Месяца нет, Заревом алым,Запад блестит, Птицы на гнездах, В кущах стада_.”

The last thing she was aware of was this new handler’s chuckle, and his voice from far away; “Я буду в этом уверен.” **_I will make sure of it._**

_Всё вдруг умолкло, Все по местам…_

_Everything suddenly shushed, everything in its place._

The world faded away.


	7. Siberia/Belarus 1992

**January 2nd, 1992**

**Hydra Holding and Training Facility, Siberia**

* * *

_They’d become too strong._

She watched the Winter Soldiers as they trained together. Her partner was in the ring; in the centre of the space that served as both an enclosed training ground, and protection for the impossibly mortal and vulnerable Hydra agents beyond.

The Winter Soldier Program had not been born with her; she had come to learn. No – she was the only surviving subject of the Ghost Initiative, back when there was no serum, but there was radiation trialling and genetic manipulation that wasn’t prohibited by the government. She was the product of now-illegal experimental biotechnology that had exposed women and children alike to currents and electromagnetic radiation that deformed and mutated. Her birth-mother had survived, and so had she – despite the lethality of the experiments.

The Winter Soldier Program had made her partner; and now it had transformed Hydra’s best kill squad into super-powered individuals with far too much strength and far too little discipline. The Soviet Union had fallen barely a week before, and she – and every person in the facility – knew that they were running on borrowed time. Soon, the government would come down upon their heads, and at this moment in time – she could see nothing suitable to support and contain this new and virtually untested group of enhanced.

Still - Colonel Vasily Karpov was desperate to press on with the Program, and so her and her partner were reaping the worst of what the undisciplined Soldiers were dishing out. She was still nursing her broken arm, shattered in three places from the brute that her partner was currently engaging. Karpov sat, seemingly uninterested, behind his desk – scribbling notes into the little accursed red book. She couldn’t deny that he still frightened her; as she was conditioned to be, but she was also scornful. He was a fool to think that any of these unconditioned agents would be useful. They had been murderous savages _before_ the serum – now, all that they had been was amplified. They were dangerous because they did not obey – and Karpov seemed unwilling to understand that.

Her nostrils flared at the scent of the mutated testosterone coursing through the sweating men and woman inside the cage; watching as her partner was slammed painfully into the ground, his arm screaming in mechanical protest as it was wrenched up and around by the Winter Soldier pinning him down. Then, so quickly it was hard to follow – her partner was dragged upright again, and the force of the kick that the other Soldier gave to his chest sent him crashing into the bullet proof glass of the observatory door.

Karpov stood up, with a smile. “Молодец, солдат.” **_Well done, Soldier._** He motioned the nearest doctor over, to take the victor’s vitals. It must have been the visible pain on her partner’s face that spurred him into action, a sign of a momentary weakness – as the Soldier grasped the man in the lab coat by the back of the neck, slamming him viciously into the ground – the resulting wet cracking sound made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. In response, one of the guards slammed his baton down upon the Soldier’s neck. Any other man would have crumpled – but the Winter Soldiers were not just men. Slowly, the others stood, and alarm rang through her.

She stepped directly through the bars – ignoring the sudden up cry from the guards positioned within the prison-like practice yard, as their handler pulled out his pistol, and her partner stood up warily. “Солдаты. Вытащи меня отсюда.” **_Soldier. Get me out of here._**

For the first time, Karpov sounded afraid.

She could have smiled. Instead – weaving through the chaos as the Winter Soldiers set upon the guards – she reached for her partner, meeting his searching gaze. His small nod – of gratitude, of recognition, of warning, she didn’t quite know – pre-empted his step to the side, allowing her to reach Karpov. Karpov’s wide eyed look as she grasped the nape of his neck was near comical.

It was easy, to pull her partner with her into her grey realm, but to assess Karpov’s body mass took a moment too long. Her partner, however, was still sharp, and intercepted the attack of one of the Soldiers as they swiped at them. They walked together, her hand firm on the back of Karpov’s neck, her partner firm in his stride – silver arm flashing spectacularly in the artificial lighting. She and Karpov stepped through the gate, her partner just a beat behind, slamming the door locked behind them.

Karpov shook her off, sending her a killing look.

Obedient, she dropped her head. Her partner kept his eyes on the training-cell, as the Winter Soldiers began to try out the metal bars, trying to break loose.

“Газ их! Заправьте их газом и положите под них!” **_Gas them! Gas them, and put them under!_**

Karpov sounded positively frantic, and she raised her gaze to meet her partner’s as he turned. She swore she could see the faint light of amusement dancing in his grey-blue eyes. They fell into step again, turning away from each other, but the shared moment remained between them – as behind them, gas began to pour in from the ceiling.

* * *

**May 8th, 1992**

**Red Room Training Academy, Belarus**

* * *

“Ghost.”

The armed security officer’s voice was respectful, and she nodded at him in acknowledgement, allowing him to fall into step with her. “Матрона хотела бы, чтобы вы оценили новобранцев.” **_The Matron would like you to assess the newest recruits. _**The man was low-ranking, and clearly affected by whatever mythology surrounded her here – new enough to speak to her so politely. He was trying not to stare at her, but she could practically taste his curious admiration on her tongue, sickeningly sweet.

She turned to look at him, meeting one of his side-eyes with the full force of her own – and he made an unfortunate squeaking sound, dropping his gaze immediately. She felt her mouth purse in disapproval. He would not last long here. “Понял.” **_Understood._** She hesitated, pausing at the corridor’s turnoff. As she suspected, he lingered with her, eagerly. “Ты бы хорошо помнил свою станцию, солдат.” **_You'd do well to remember your station, soldier._** She spoke with gravity, trying to instil _some_ sense of warning within him, but even as he nodded his head, he had a slightly glazed look to his eyes. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, debating whether or not she should report the man, and pre-empt any consequence.

As he saluted, a little clumsily, and walked away from her, her eyes caught on a little ducktail formed by his improperly tucked uniform shirt. Something in her chest panged painfully. _He was just a boy._ She turned herself on her heel sharply – forcing her mind off him. _Sentiment._ She thought scornfully, pushing herself faster – ghosting through the doors of the ballet studio that all of their recruits waited within.

Immediately, her eyes picked out the girls that had jumped in fright at her sudden appearance, making note of their faces. Most of them had jumped – most likely already on edge at the strange coldness of the Academy. The girls were lined up according to age; with their names and ages pinned to the front of their new uniform, the grey shifts making it hard for her to assess their physical shape.

This group of recruits was the smallest she’d seen, though the number of new girls admitted had been falling since she had begun her placement here. They were all too skinny; waifish and under-fed, a few with visible defects. Russia’s current economic status after the Soviet Union’s dissolvement was in decline, and the nation’s health was also on the downwards spiral. Hydra had made it very clear that its involvement and position within the Russian nation was nearing an end. She had been instructed to be on the alert for her marching orders since April, and could sense The Matron’s developing resentment and despair with every passing day. Even she, so resolute and sure of her power, seemed to sense that the Red Room Academy’s time was growing to a close, with the KGB in the process of withdrawing their funding.

Her eyes fell upon the girl standing on the far end of the line – her tag said she was only eight, and she was the youngest that the Academy, and she, had seen in a long time. Her family must have been desperate for the benefits the Red Room allocated to successful candidates.

Something about the determined set to the young girl’s jaw told her that the girl knew what rode on her shoulders. She was undersized for her age, no doubt malnourished, but her hair was a brilliant ginger – such a colour she hadn’t seen before in such richness. She’d long made peace with the Soviet Union as a place bled of colour, but for the red of blood and her partner’s starry adornment. Her eyes too, were a rich green – and it was clear she was destined for beauty. There was something else about her face though, something that made her eyes linger. Something about it that was familiar – though how or why she felt such an odd recognition was beyond her, and ultimately, unimportant.

She drew her eyes from the girl’s face, and turned to The Matron, who was hovering in the corner with an assistant, ever watchful. The Matron nodded to her; giving her the go ahead. She looked back at the girls – some of the ones that had frightened at her entry stiffening their postures at her attention. “Покажи мне свои силы.” **_Show me your strength. _**She told them, adopting her at-attention stance, and folding her hands behind her back.

The girls looked between themselves, uncertain.

Two of the eldest dropped slowly to the floor, and began self-conscious push-ups, looking between themselves and at the rest of the line for cues. After another moment, the majority of the line began to copy them. But – as the second last in line started to kneel – the little red-head gripped onto her sleeve, stopping the other girl from dropping to the floor.

The red-head looked once at her, before turning back to the other girl. In one fast, slightly sloppy move, dirty – but no doubt learnt from street scraps – she punched the elder girl square in the face, and as she recoiled, clutching her nose with a cry, the red-head brought her knee up, catching and winding the girl, sending her toppling to the floor.

The other girls fell still and silent – freezing in place as the felled recruit cried on the floor. The red-head – almost defiantly, she thought in amazement – turned to her.

Slowly – slow enough that it made the red-head uncertain, and cower in her uncertainty – she approached her. She crouched before the little thing, and gripped her wrist tightly. Wordlessly, she corrected her fist, feeling the way the girl was trembling beneath her, bringing her thumb out of her clenched hand. She could tell the little thing had dislocated, perhaps even fractured, her thumb, and her knuckles and wrist were probably smarting from the impact. It had been, a technically incorrect, but powerful hit from someone so small.

“Хороший.” **_Good._** She said, standing and regarding the rest of the recruits. “Я увижу тех из вас, кто готов тренироваться завтра.” **_I will see those of you that are fit to train tomorrow._**

She crossed to The Matron, who beckoned her to look at her assistant’s clip board, where the names of the girls were written neatly. She took the proffered red marker, and highlighted the few that could continue on. She paused before leaving, and circled a name twice.

_Natalia Alianovna Romanoff, age eight._

* * *

**7th July, 1995**

**Red Room Training Academy, Belarus**

* * *

“Again – you are being deliberately careless.”

English still tasted wrong on her tongue, but the KGB required their agents to sound near native – and as a result, she had been forced into speaking the language whenever she instructed.

She didn’t miss the faint look of irritation on the eleven-year-old’s face as she stepped away from the other recruit she had been grappling with.

“Is there a problem, Natalia?”

The other recruits drew a collective breath at her tone – but Natalia, as she always did, seemed unafraid. “No, ma’am.” The red-head was already growing into her beauty, as she had suspected, and the high-performance nutrition and care that the Academy provided had done her well.

She was able to say with absolute confidence that Natalia was the best they had ever had, and perhaps, the best they ever would. Which was why she could see right through the girl’s flimsy engagement with the other recruit. No doubt, the little-thing – as she referred near affectionately to the girl in her head – could not be bothered to continue with the mock round robin; wherein the winner of each fight would stay on the mat until defeated. Natalia was as such, at this point in the session, undefeated.

She quirked an eyebrow at Natalia, who ducked her head slightly, aware she’d been caught out – but no less unapologetic. “I will not tolerate laziness. Letting your opponent best you, is unacceptable. Again.”

Suitably chastised, Natalia and her partner moved to face one another – the other recruit’s face glowing both with exertion, and the embarrassment of a false victory. This time, Natalia’s performance had enough vigour that when there was a knock on the door, she felt confident enough to turn and face whoever thought it pertinent to interrupt the session.

She was glad she had turned from the recruits as her heart stuttered unexpectedly at the face of the man in the doorway.

“Солдаты.” **_Soldier._**

Her tone had enough surprise within it to make her recruits shift behind her. She could hear the faint grunt of the recruit that Natalia had no doubt pinned still. He met her gaze, and she saw an acknowledgement that was usually hidden behind his mask. She was even more stunned at the faint warmth she saw there too. It was gone the next second, as the small form of The Matron appeared beside him.

“The Winter Soldier has been sent to temporarily assist in your instruction, Ghost.” The Matron said, and the lack of acknowledgement of Hydra’s involvement – when it was usually so boasted about – made a curiosity, long dormant, stir in her.

“Yes, Matron.” She bowed her head to the woman, keeping her head lowered until the woman left the room again. She turned back to the girls – who had all stilled at The Matron’s entrance, the girl in Natalia’s grip turning a shade of blue. She didn’t need to look to know her partner had moved to flank her. She could feel him beside her, the faint scent of him as familiar as her own; metallic like the edge of blood, and warm – his heart beating a pulse she knew. “Recruits, this is my partner – you will address him with the same gravity of station I am afforded here.”

“_Yes, ma’am._”

The chorus was uniform, as they had been taught, and at the faint shift beside her that indicated, however minutely, her partner’s surprise – she felt a dull sense of pride. She nodded once. “You may continue.”

* * *

“They’re good.”

She turned to look at her partner over the thick binder of recruit information she was reading, where he sat in the only other chair in the room. She’d been afforded a small set of rooms; a simple room where she slept on a mat, and a tiny office where she was expected to write and receive reports and orders. The rooms were near bare, and yet, she could see marks of herself through out – in the set of watches she slowly collected, lining the wall beside her bookcase that was near sagging under the weight of all the files she had stuffed there. She wasn’t surprised that her partner fit in, that he seemed to have belonged there all along. Perhaps that was why she had requested the other chair after all – just because it was easy to see him there, with her.

She nodded, “They are well-disciplined. They do their country proud.” English wasn’t strange to her now, but the context of speaking it with him was – and for a moment she was back in that flophouse, begging him to come home. The memory was sour in her mouth, and she turned away from him again. _Sentiment._

“You’re proud of them.” He pointed out. She didn’t respond – there was no need to, he knew what she felt. They sat in silence again, comfortable and usual. She knew her room was bugged, no doubt he did too, and their understanding was near absolute anyway.

He looked different; bigger. She knew he had come from America, and wondered about their nutrition system there. They were both upkept intravenously – nutrition, hydration and even their REM cycles had been controlled since they’d gone into operation, and for her ever since she could remember. Perhaps the American Hydra division preferred a more visible strength. She felt an odd sense of smallness against him. “How is American command?” she asked him, trying to stave off the sensation.

He tilted his head, a mirth dancing in his eyes she recognised. “Они любят говорить.” **_They love to talk._** He said, and she near smiled. Characteristic, then. “Они любят говорить с тобой. Вам нужно будет подготовиться к этому.” **_They like to talk to you. You'll need to prepare for it._**

She shifted uneasily, eyes going to her row of watches. “So, they intend to move me soon?”

Her partner inclined his head. “Hydra is moving past Russia – you know this, Ghost.”

“Я нашел место здесь.” **_I have found a place here._** She hadn’t meant to say it, it had fallen from her lips unbidden. Her upset must have shown, because her partner stood, moving silently towards her. She let him take the binder from her, and place it back into her bookcase.

“Ваше место с Гидрой.” **_Your place is with Hydra. _**He said loud enough for whatever microphones that were active to pick up. He stilled behind her, so close she could feel his breath upon the nape of her neck. “Мы в безопасности.” **_We’re secure_**_. _The old words made her shudder, and knew he could see it.

“Я не хочу идти к ним.” **_I don't want to go to them. _**She admitted near soundlessly, below human hearing. He loomed over her, silent and listening. “Я бы хотел, чтобы ты был здесь со мной.” **_I would have you with me here._**

His intake of breath at her admission made her shut her mouth tight, cursing herself. But he spoke, the metal of his left hand brushing the underside of her wrist once. “И я бы остался.” **_And I would stay._** He said shortly. “Мне ... неудобно друг от друга.” **_I am... uncomfortable apart._** He said hesitantly.

She had not felt so vulnerable – never, despite the lack of weaponry aimed at her, at the lack of hostility. Yet she felt as if her insides were splayed, that blood and words were pouring from her at a pace she couldn’t control. “Как и я.” **_As am I. _** She felt her gut twist with a sudden nausea. “Они наказывают такие чувства.” **_They punish such sentiment._**

“Они создали наше партнерство сами.” **_They created our partnership themselves. _**He said, almost bitterly. “Они должны были ожидать зависимую связь.” **_They should have expected a codependent bond._**

Something white hot and angry was tempering the sickness in her belly. “Но для них мы не люди.” **_But to them, we are not human._**

“You are human to me.”

It was as if he could sense her own self-revulsion. Because truly, she thought herself sub-human. What she was, what she did, what she had done; it was inhuman. She couldn’t respond to him. “Мы в безопасности.” **_We’re secure_**_. _She said hurriedly, and stepped away from him, ending the hushed confessional. She felt dirty – and yet more at peace than she had since 1973.

He let her go, but that night – before their respective sleep cycles began – she could sense his thoughtful consideration on her from his pallet mattress they’d laid on the floor next to hers. It made her skin prickle uncomfortably – and she turned away from him, facing the wall and curling her knees to her chest, just for the illusion of protection. Eventually though, the heavy artificial blanket of sleep fell upon her, and she felt herself slacken before the night claimed her.

* * *

Her partner was unforgiving. Perhaps it was just another mark of his strength, that he gave no evidence of pity, even as he moved at a human pace, hit with a human strength. She knew he could have torn through them like they were paper. She supervised his training sessions with the recruits, more a formality than anything else. He could do the instructing himself, if he felt so inclined, but she appreciated that he wanted her there.

Natalia, as she had expected, had lasted the longest against him.

It had been strange; just for a moment, right before he had tried to pin her the first time, he’d frozen. Just for a moment, not long enough for Natalia to do anything more than free herself from his grip – but she’d noticed it. She noticed it, and when they were sent to her room again, she asked him about it.

“What happened?” She folded her legs beneath her on her thin sleep mat, watching him undress at the sink. She didn’t need to specify, it was clear he was still thinking about it too, eyebrows furrowed. He looked at her, pulling his rest-shirt over his head.

“She looks like you.” He said simply, half-collapsing onto his own pallet.

She shook her head, almost smiling. “Did you hit your head? She doesn’t look like me.”

He rolled, fixing her with that frown again. “No – she really looks like you. Just different…” he made a faint gesture with his flesh hand at her.

She tilted her head. “So, she looks different to me?”

He snarled faintly at her, lips curling. “You know what I mean.” He said impatiently. “She _does_ look like you.”

She curled her knees to her chest automatically as the faint prickling of her approaching sleep began to make her limbs heavy. From the way her partner had begun to blink slowly, she knew that the night was almost upon him as well. “She doesn’t look like me; she looks alive.” She told him sleepily, voice slurred with artificial exhaustion.


	8. Belarus 1999/Washington D.C. 2003

**December 31st, 1999**

**Red Room Training Academy, Belarus**

* * *

She was silent as she watched the young woman responsible for data monitoring erase the last 26 years of her life.

The Matron hovered near by, frown etched deep in her face from where it had settled a few hours earlier, when she had received the news of her departure. Hydra didn’t want any loose ends, didn’t want the utter secrecy breached, which meant that any information, reports, surveillance footage – any scrap of evidence that she had ever stepped foot into the Academy had to be permanently lost.

She was still trying to come to terms with the last half of her orders. The half that had been encrypted, the half that had made her drag her feet just a little longer.

Her rooms had already been dismantled, everything that she could have perhaps laid claim to; the chair, the worn desk, the sagging bookshelves, the thin pallet she slept on, her watches – all destroyed. She’d managed to squirrel away one of the watches; the one she had stolen in America, the one that meant the most.

She knew she couldn’t keep it, but as she was coming to discover; sentiment could be applied to inanimate as well as the living.

“Законченный, Matron.” **_Finished_**_._

_Finished_.

She eyed the screen, caught the eye of the woman in her reflection on the computer monitor. She was pretty; in a plain sort of way, full of life.

In a smooth movement, she unholstered her gun, and fired one clean shot straight through the young woman’s head, shattering the computer and splattering the desk with gore. The woman’s body sagged with a thump out of the chair to the floor, and she stepped over her. The Matron made no noise as she turned the weapon on her, and she looked almost unsurprised.

“Make it quick, girl.” The Matron squared her shoulders, and again, she marvelled at the sheer iron will of the woman.

“It’s not personal.” She felt compelled to say.

The Matron’s lips quirked. “Of course, it isn’t personal. You do your country proud.” She kept her almost-smile even as she pulled the trigger, eyes fluttering shut as red painted the white wall behind her and she collapsed.

For a long moment, she lingered in the silence of the office, watching without seeing as the carpet soak up the scarlet from both bodies. Then, she mechanically dismantled the hard drive within the computer, extracting it and smashing it to pieces.

She lifted a hand to her ear, activating the small communication piece. “It is done.”

“_Very good. The Matron’s replacement will deal with clean-up. Report to the rendezvous point for extraction.”_

“Understood.”

She did not report to the rendezvous point.

There was one last thing she had to do first.

* * *

“Ты уезжаешь.” **_You’re leaving._**

She eyed Natalia’s hard expression with pride. Natalia was the best of all of them, smart and quick and strong and ruthless. Perhaps she would even grow to surpass herself.

“Ты забудешь меня.” **_You will forget me._** It was as much an order as it was a farewell, and Natalia nodded once. She hesitated for a moment, and the girl caught it, eyes tracking the movement of her hand to her pocket. She beckoned the girl, and Natalia went willingly. They were alone in this dorm; there were not enough girls to fill the rooms, and so the small luxury of a little privacy was allotted to the elder girls. Natalia would be sixteen soon. She presented the small worn timepiece to the red-head with no reverence, and yet the girl took it humbly, head bowed and eyes downcast. “Держать его в безопасности.” **_Keep it safe._** She told the girl.

Natalia nodded, already tucking it into her waistband, hiding it away. “Вы будете гордиться.” **_You’ll be proud._** She promised, as solemn as she had ever spoken, and she almost smiled at the earnest girl.

“I’ve never had any doubt of that.” She told the girl and turned to go.

* * *

**January 1st, 2000**

**The Ritz-Carlton, Washington D.C.**

**00:35**

* * *

They liked this; she realised. They liked being so close to the epicentre of freedom and American democracy. They liked the teasing and insulting thrill of existing right under the noses of S.H.I.E.L.D.

It served to make the American Hydra cells even more arrogant. Such arrogance she had already associated with Americans in general, the shallow, Hollywood flavoured society that placed such importance on social representation that they were effectively ignoring anything unsavoury below the surface.

She and her partner were practically on display now; further contributing to their game of appearance.

Hydra was toasting in the new millennium, toasting the acquisition of their newest assets, and toasting the newest brainchild of their highest command. She’d been listening to the guards, politicians, and agents alike tossing around statements about Hydra’s bright future. She did not care to listen further.

Beside her, her partner shifted. It could hardly be out of discomfort: she and him could both hold more uncomfortable positions for hours if need be. Standing against the far wall of a large and incredibly ornate ballroom was hardly a stretch of willpower. It was a move to get her attention, and she shifted her own hands, brushing against his flesh arm as she arranged herself into parade rest.

“Как прошло путешествие?” **_How was the journey?_** His voice was quiet, and she eyed him in her periphery, wondering if his own eyes were on her underneath his mask. The second she’d been escorted off the plane, she’d been dressed in her uniform and driven to this event, where her partner had been already watching and waiting. Security detail had been their official mission, but they could both tell what they were truly there for.

She hadn’t realised how much she had missed his voice until he spoke, and it took some effort not to turn to him fully. “Хорошо.” **_Fine._** She eyed the room, the glittering women on the arms of suited men, the champagne, the laughter, the sheer opulence of it all. “Это всегда так?” **_Is it always like this?_**

He let out a soft breath; and shifted a little closer, so now she could just dimly feel the heat of him through the thick material of her sleeves. “Нет, это особый случай.” **_No. This is a special occasion._** He was quiet for a beat. “Я надеюсь.” **_I hope. _**She felt her lips quirk beneath her own mask, and leant into him for a moment, a brief touch of solidarity and amusement.

“There they are!” The loud voice drew both of their attentions immediately, and they both reacted to the finger being jabbed at them, drawing up and away from each other. The man pointing at them had his arm around the shoulders of another, slightly elder, with sharp eyes that were looking at them too. “The infamous Soldiers! Pierce, you dog – I didn’t think you’d ever get a hold of them.”

Pierce – the man with the sharp eyes – smiled delicately. “Lower your voice, Stern. Officially – I haven’t.” Stern looked suitably apologetic, and whatever eyes his cries had drawn were already wandering, moving past the two anonymous guards against the wall. The two men, however, continued their approach. “Only the male is the Soldier – the female came from a different initiative.”

She felt a sudden odd sense of detachment as he referred to them. It was easy to slip into a mindset she was used to; the feeling of being owned. Of being nothing more than a trained animal. He spoke as if they were guard dogs; trained and obedient submissive.

“Hmmm… _incredibly_ eerie!” Stern had moved closer as she swirled within herself and was examining both of their headpieces. Pierce stood back, simply observing, as the fat man began to poke and prod at her. “Looks very… European, Alex, tell me you’ll upgrade this.” He ran his hands down the front of her vest, and then back up, hands lingering over her chest, eyes alight with an unfamiliar curiosity. “Is it really a woman?”

Pierce chuckled. “I am assured.”

She felt an odd discomfit as Stern began to regard her with an intensity, hands moving down over her hips. “Well – not much of one.” He laughed with Pierce. “The Commies must’ve starved you over there, huh?” She stilled further, unsure whether or not to reply. “Hm? You mute, deaf or stupid?” his hand tapped none too gently on the side of her head.

Her partner moved beside her, head turning slowly and deliberately to regard the man, silver fingers twitching and catching the light enough to catch attention. Fear pumped through her. Insubordination was punishable, and if he was punished because-

They laughed.

She took a sharp breath of surprise, as the two men laughed. Stern slapped his friend on the back. “Possessive bastard, is he?”

Pierce sobered slightly, regarding them. “I suppose so.”

Stern just laughed again. “Well, I’d better leave his bitch alone then. I’ll see you when I leave, old friend. Best return to the missus before she sends a search party.”

Pierce waved him off, and Stern lumbered back through the crowds and out of sight. Her partner had returned to his previous stillness, but Pierce’s eyes were alight with something menacing and she felt a foreboding resignation begin to weigh her limbs down. But he said nothing; just looked between the two of them again, and then smiled. “Interesting. Welcome to the United States of America.”

Then he was gone, and she swallowed around a lump in her throat and resisted the urge to look at her partner.

* * *

**June 20th, 2003**

**HYDRA Base Holding Facility, Washington D.C.**

* * *

They were housed together now.

It seemed that Hydra had a more current and pressing need for them; because her partner hadn’t been put into cryostasis since her arrival. But they hadn’t been out, not truly; because a few simple intelligence gatherings, and some casual surveillance was hardly a mission.

Yet, they spent the days and nights together; just as they had during the peak of the Soviet Hydra activity.

It was a blessing.

He was, once again, the only familiar thing in this unfamiliar landscape they had found themselves in. The strangest thing was the constant encouragement of their cooperation. They had always worked together, always trained with each other, assisted where absolutely needed. Now, it seemed that Hydra wanted them together, where once they had not – and it was jarring.

Near as jarring as seeing the single, large cot in their room had been.

It had been a strange first few nights, sleeping so close to her partner, but it hadn’t taken long to adjust. After all, she knew her partner just as she knew herself, knew him as the weapon they both were – now knew him as the single unit that Hydra seemed to desire. Besides – they both slept their artificial sleep so deeply that it wouldn’t have mattered if they were on top of each other or continents apart.

She had been right too, about the American’s nutritional change.

She sat now, beside her partner, as they were given their second bi-weekly nutrition. Her partner was also being worked on; a bespectacled technician bent over his arm, working on cleaning some of the most delicate parts of machinery. She felt stronger than she had before she had arrived here; though the extra energy she had received had taken a little work to get used to. The Americans wanted to devote more of her training to her abilities, rather than upkeep of her combat skills, and she very quickly learnt that the extra energy the adjusted diet gave her was required for the constant demands of her new command.

Her partner suddenly flinched, mouth going tight, and her eyes flew to the technician as he cursed quietly. “Careful.” She told him sharply, and he looked up at her. She held his gaze.

Command was different here. She could almost say they had autonomy – if she compared the distinct differences between her Russian command and this new one. Here, they reported only to ranking officers. Here, technicians and other lower-level operatives were deferential to _her._ It was new, and unexpected – and though her partner had taken to his new status with some ease, she was still unused to it.

However, it took no thought to chastises such carelessness. Her partner’s arm was precious, and it could very easily cause him physical grief if handled improperly, deliberately or otherwise.

The technician ducked his head, cheeks pink. Her partner turned to her, an eyebrow raised. “Это было только мгновенно.”**_ It was only momentary. _**He said, of the pain.

“Это не важно.” **_It doesn't matter. _**She told him, gently adjusting the position of the IV in the crook of her elbow. “Они должны заботиться лучше.” **_They should take better care._**

His lips twitched, and he regarded her for another moment. She looked away first, feeling his eyes lingering on her. Feeling a surge of self-consciousness, she phased out of sight reflexively, twitching at a surge of electricity at her wrist cuffs.

Strangely enough, though the pain was the same, the effect was not. In the past; a warning current would halt the process, would return her to visibility. Now – though she flickered momentarily – there was no excruciating need to release her hold.

More curious than repentant, she returned to visibility. Her partner was looking at her again, this time with a question in his eyes.

Then, the door flew open, and another of the technicians – one she recognised as being assigned to her – stepped through, flanked by two armed agents. She straightened, her partner uncomfortably edging into a defensive position as best he could with his arm out of commission.

“Leave it.” The technician barked at the man attending her partner’s arm. He put his hands up in mild surrender, dropping his tools and standing up. The technician looked at her, and motioned for her to stand. She did as he asked, muscles trembling from the need to act – adrenaline flooding her system. He crossed the room to her, the agents shadowing him closely, and it took her a second to comprehend that one of the weapons was levelled at her, and the other at her partner. The technician lifted her wrists, examining the cuffs that usually governed her movements. “What did you do to these?” he asked her, equal parts furious and worried.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

He hit her. “Don’t lie to me!” Her partner rose to his feet, and both guns rose with him. The technician looked scared, but only for a moment.

She regarded him coolly. It hadn’t hurt; she was used to much larger and heavy-handed men dealing out punishment. But it rankled. “I haven’t touched them.” Something was rising in her. He was afraid of her, and though she expected _that_, for once, he was afraid of her and she seemed to be unchecked. If the cuffs couldn’t hold her… _what could?_

She took a step forwards, and the man panicked, reeling backwards. “Gas them!” He squawked, and the two agents fired at her uselessly. The bullets passed through her, and as though it was a signal – her partner darted for them.

He was still lethal even without his arm, and even as the room began to fill with clouds of nitrous oxide – the technicians sprinting for the exit – he had the two agents downed. She started for the door, the _something_ that had sparked the rebellion flowing through her, powering her onwards. She could phase right through, and then she could-

A thud behind her, and she turned to see her partner unconscious, sprawled where he had fallen. _What was she thinking? _She couldn’t leave him. She moved back towards him. If she could just drag him out of the room, then _they_ could-

The room swirled rapidly and then went dark.

* * *

“_She’s waking up-”_

_“Continue with the operation.”_

_“But, sir-”_

_“Continue.”_

Pain. White hot and wet, down her back. Restriction around her body, straps, holding her tight and down. Then she was screaming as she became aware of the sudden obtrusion in her body, cold and metal and unnatural and then-

Electricity.

Back to darkness.

* * *

She woke screaming again, pain still radiating down her spine, sparking through her body. There were restraints again, but they were gentle, warm, arms holding her down.

“_Calm down_.”

He was whispering, sounding a few shades more frantic than he ever had, and as she arched her back involuntarily, her body trying to get away from sensations with nowhere to go, he let her go with his flesh hand, and stroked gently over her head once before he tightened his hold and forced her head down onto the mattress he held her on, his metal arm immovable where he was clutching her hips.

He held her still as she attempted to thrash and shriek, blood, sweat, and tears wetting the mattress. It felt like hours before sleep claimed her, and despite the fog that must have descended upon her partner, she didn’t feel him waver, didn’t know if he slept or not.

* * *

Her body was rejecting whatever they had done to her.

She was fevered and delirious when she was conscious, weak and shaking when she slept. She had never felt so close to death before; and she was scared. She would have healed by now, but the _devices_ in her body were being accepted, and she was being ravaged by her antibodies effectively trying to rid her of the metal inside her, whilst the outer surgery site was also mildly infected. It had been about a month, and each day had seemed to stretch for years.

On the twenty-ninth day since the operation, her head felt a little less heavy, her vision a little clearer, and when she moved for the first time without a pained noise; he was there.

When she reached for him, he came to her, bending so they were near face to face. She opened her mouth, tried to speak – but with her throat so dry and wrecked, all she could manage was a whimper. He disappeared from view for a moment, before reappearing with a dripping rag, placing the end in her mouth. She sucked greedily at the moisture, and he repeated the process twice for her.

“You’re awake.” He stated quietly, crouching beside her and gently wiping over her face with the rag. The fresh coolness felt like heaven. She could smell her own musty sweat, dried on her skin.

“You’re here.” She said – and she must have still been fevered – for her voice sounded like a stranger’s; soft and wondering.

He sat properly. “I never left.” He told her, matter of fact. And yes, he was telling the truth. Some of her frenzied memories, distorted by fever and agony, returned to her – his cool hands on her face, hands holding her still, voice soothing. He looked hesitant, shadows under his eyes she had never seen before. “Я волновался.” **_I was worried._** He said finally.

Her hand seemed to have a mind of its own, as it grasped his metal wrist. His eyes strayed to where she gripped him, but he didn’t lose his disconcerted look. “Вам не нужно иметь.” **_You needn’t have._** She said quietly. “Они бы не позволили мне умереть.” **_They wouldn’t have let me die._**

“It doesn’t matter. They should take better care.” He said gruffly, meeting her eyes – echoing her own statement from weeks ago. She closed her eyes. “Do you want to sit up?” She still ached, still felt heated and wrong, but also stronger than she had in far too long now. Dully, she nodded, cheek still mashed against the mattress. He manipulated her body, turned her so she would face him, and gently – his hands under her arms – sat her up.

For a moment, there was nothing – and then a flare of pain so great she cried out. The muscles in her back spasmed, and she fell forwards, into him, choking back more sound into his shoulder. He let her rest there, despite his awkward position beside the bed, his flesh hand coming up to secure her head where she slumped weakly into him. “Где болит?” **_Where does it hurt?_**

“Everywhere.” She whispered, tears building in her eyes again. Briefly, his hand flexed on her skull, and she sighed against him. The movement left her dizzy, and she couldn’t resist as he lifted her again, climbing into the bed with her, and positioning her against him in his lap as he leant against the wall.

She didn’t think she would have protested if she could have.

The pain was receding from its flare, and he was familiar and warm. She kept her face against his shoulder, reassuring herself with his scent, with his heartbeat, each breath she could feel. She wouldn’t have heard him speak, either, if she hadn’t been so close;

“I’ll make it right, маленький дух.” **_Little ghost._**

She shivered a little, and his arms tightened around her.


	9. Odessa, 2009

**February 5th, 2009**

**Odessa, Ukraine.**

* * *

She hovered above him, balancing herself with one careful hand between his shoulder blades, invisible and privately enjoying the wind on her face as they looked out over the winding road below them.

Ukraine was as close as she had been to Russia in sometime, and she couldn’t help but relish the familiar landscape. Her partner was less enthused, but he hadn’t said anything to the way she was sticking her nose into the air like a dog. She’d have to replace her mask soon enough, but tried to drink in the crisp breeze whilst she could.

The road they were monitoring was typical of Ukraine’s mountain passes. Relatively unkempt, dangerous, and essentially empty. It was not a populated stretch of highway – and it was for that reason, their target had taken the route. Under American command, they were afforded even less information on their targets than they had been in Russia. She herself was not even sure of his first name; just that he was an Iranian-born American physicist and was working on some nuclear engineering that Hydra wanted him to permanently stop doing.

“Vehicle approaching.” Her partner said quietly, hunkering down a little more over his rifle. She stepped back, replacing her mask, and crouching beside him – and phased them both out of sight. A small black jeep appeared from around the bend, and her partner took a breath and held it – she could feel the peak of it under her hand, the way his body stilled.

He took the shot.

The jeep swerved wildly, and though the driver attempted to keep the vehicle straight, they couldn’t fight gravity and as the shot-out tire forced the car to slide left, it hung just a little too far over the edge of the mountainous road. For one trembling moment, it clung, then with a loud groan of the engine, it slid and flipped out of sight.

They waited out the loud crashes and booming noises, watching as smoke began to rise from the wreckage they knew they would find. Her partner took his time tidying his things, and she waited for him at the lip of the ridge, mentally plotting their way down. She would have an easier time of it than him; who would be burdened not only by his rifle, but his own bulk. She was more built for balance and the delicate picking down an unstable rocky path.

Still, she let him go first as they made their way down to the road. The path of destruction the car had left as it had tumbled down the sheer slope looked to be far more complicated and she listened to her partner’s sigh with a faint smile. “I’ll meet you down there.” She told him.

They were both required to assess the death of a target, both required to assist in any clean-up required at the scene. _Two sets of eyes are better than one_, as their unofficial handler was so fond of saying. She began to make her way down the debris, nearly losing her footing more than once as she approached the smoking wreckage.

The car was scratched, dented and twisted up beyond belief – and she had to admire the efficiency of a single shot. It was a believable scene, and she circled the smoking vehicle twice to try and spot where the bullet had travelled. She couldn’t find it. She phased through the tipped up bottom, and into the vehicle.

For a moment, she didn’t comprehend the scene in front of her.

Somehow, the radio was still working, and a woman was crooning about ‘_telling my whole life with his words, killing me softly with his song’_. The softness of her voice just made the rest of the devastation look even more horrible. There was woman, curled around the body of their target – both conscious, though the woman was obviously woozy – tucked in the back seat of the car, sparkling with the shattered glass of the windows above and below them. A woman. A woman with a long head of brilliantly red curls, a stunningly symmetrical face, and brilliant green eyes.

In her surprise, she dropped the phase, and flickered into visibility – making the man scream, and the woman flinch.

She just stared. It was impossible. Entirely impossible. How could she be_ here_?

The last time she had seen the face in front of her, it had been much thinner and much younger. But it was the same face.

“_Natalia-?”_

The car was ripped open, and she instinctively phased out of sight again as her partner stepped through the opening he had made. The woman – _Natalia – _Natalia recoiled, and even in her weakened state, attempted to shield the man under her further. Her partner raised his pistol uncaringly, and she panicked.

She reappeared, making him look at her, even as his finger tightened on the trigger. “Не надо!” **_Don’t!_** she cried, slapping his hand down as he fired.

The bullet went wild – instead of pegging the both of them in a kill shot; her through the heart, him through the head – it ripped through Natalia’s abdomen and into the chest of the target behind her. He went limp near immediately, but Natalia gasped, her foreign, adult hands going to clutch at her wound.

Her partner grabbed her around the waist, and hauled her out of the wreck. “Что, черт побери, это было?” **_What the hell was that?_** He hissed at her.

She stared at his faceless mask, still in shock. _Of course, how would he recognise her? _No doubt Hydra had wiped his mind of his time in the Red Room, as the Russians were wont to do every so often. They should have done the same to her, but the Russian Hydra cells had lost her to the Americans before they could.

She had no words – and fell in behind him numbly as he began to stalk away from the scene – trying to process the ghost of a different life she had just confronted.

Natalia would be about twenty-six now. She would be twenty-six, and she should have been in Russia with the KGB, or perhaps in America, undercover. Not here. Not driving a Hydra target across the border. Not directly involved in the mission. She should have never seen Natalia again.

She felt sick.

* * *

The electrode implants in her spine activated as they approached the rendezvous point, the internal current shutting down her ability, and making her hands shake. Her partner was silent, but she could feel his rebuke, see it in his stiff shoulders, in the way he refused to look at her. They went compliantly into the mission report, into the cooldown check-ups, but she couldn’t stop seeing Natalia in her mind’s eye.

_How was this possible?_

She couldn’t stop the drumming beat of the question in her mind, fuelling her unease, fuelling a growing nervousness that she couldn’t explain, but was making her head hurt.

It didn’t _stop_.

Not when they landed, not when they debriefed, not when they were cleaned, not when the door shut behind her with a bang, not when she lay numbly on the thin sheets and tried to slow her racing heart.

“What’s wrong?”

She startled at his voice, despite him being only inches away.

“Nothing.” A lie – they both knew that he could hear her heartbeat and sense her tumultuous emotions. To seal the fact, to call her out in her falsity, he reached over, and rested his fingers against her neck, over her racing pulse point.

“Why are you lying?” he asked quietly. “It was the woman, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” She admitted. “I knew her. You did too – but not anymore.”

He was silent. She didn’t have to explain it to him further; whilst his memories would leave him, the sensation of losing them never did. He knew just as well as her what the Chair was for – even if he could never figure out why he was put in it. “How long?”

“For seven years.”

God, she _ached_ suddenly. She ached for her little room at the Academy, full of things that had been _hers_, she wanted to feel the pride she had when she watched Natalia, the confidence the deferential treatment of the staff had given her. She wanted to have her _self_ back. She was more a ghost now than she had ever been – whatever she was, tied to an organization that wanted her invisible, and the rest of her tied to a man who had just as little as she. All they were was the sum of each other, a growing kill-list, the overflowing red in their ledger, the ever present pressure of being _owned._

“Do you ever think about leaving?”

It slipped out, and she knew instinctively that it would be the tipping point. She wished she hadn’t said it the moment she vocalised the ache – but he was already nodding, fingers dancing down her neck and arm until they were holding hands. They were still linked like that when their door burst open and immobilising pain shot down her spine, and her partner was hit with tranquillisers.

The way they were wrenched apart only added to the ache of everything, and she realised she was crying as she was slammed into the Chair.

* * *

He was still screaming when she came to – head heavy, and her hands bound – and Pierce was sitting opposite her.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” He smiled, but it was a flat dangerous thing, and she squirmed, as she realised she had no idea why she was where she was. The sudden wave of disorientation paired with her partner’s bloodcurdling sounds made her breathing pick-up. He leant towards her, and pointed vaguely at the ceiling. “Want that to stop?” She was unsure what he meant for a moment – but as a faint whimper echoed around them during a break in the screams – she gulped down a surge of nausea. Pierce seemed to take that as a yes, and he crossed his arms. “If you want him back – in one piece, that is – you’re going to have to promise me something? Can you do that?”

She just looked at him, trying not to flinch as the noises started again. He stood, and in a moment faster than she expected from a man of his age, slapped her hard across the face. The silver band on his ring finger split her lip, and he gripped her chin as she sagged. “I’m going to need something better than a blank stare, sweetheart, okay?”

“Okay…” she whispered weakly, and nodded, satisfied – dropping her head and returning to his seat.

“I have been…_lenient,_ thus far.” Pierce began. “With the two of you. It’s obvious you care for each other-” she made a desperate sound of dissent, heart leaping into her throat, but he just scoffed, waving her off. “_Obvious._” He repeated slowly. “And so, I’ll make you a promise in return. If you reaffirm your loyalty, if you keep toes inside the line, if you just do your _fucking job_ – I’ll make sure he comes back. I’ll make sure the two of you can continue your tortured little woe-is-me act. Understand?”

Inside, she was screaming with him.

_Sentiment._

It banged around loudly, shrieking and thrashing, and laid bare like this – her partner’s life on the line – how could she deny it? She cared for him. She wanted his safety, his health, more than – she realised – her own.

Because what was she without him?

_Nothing. Less than nothing._

“I understand.”

* * *

She was returned to him hours later.

By that time, she was bleeding as much as he was, and she fell into the bed next to him helplessly. He hadn’t raised his head at her entry, but his only opening eye fixed on her with intensity. His face was swollen with bruises and shallow wounds, and as she listened, she could hear an unnerving rattle in his chest as he breathed.

“Настроения.” **_Sentiment._** She told him, unwilling to admit that the burning behind her eyes were the beginnings of tears. She put her hand on his chest, and he groaned. “Мы не были в безопасности.” **_We weren’t secure._**

“Мне жаль.” **_I’m sorry._** He managed, hoarse and weak. She let her head fall beside his, dizzy. He put his hand over hers, metal cool to the touch. There was nothing else to say.

For what could they do?

There was no sense in pretending that the connection between them didn’t exist, and there was no sense pretending that they weren’t compromised. She felt tears finally begin to trickle down her the sides of her face, cutting a path through the blood drying there.

Hydra had taken one final thing from her; the thing she thought they never would. They had taken it, and they were using it against her beautifully.


	10. Washington D.C., 2014

**January 9th, 2014**

**Washington D.C.**

* * *

They were worried; or at least, whoever had given the order to rouse them was.

It reflected in the haste of the technicians as they were suited up, the barely there check of her partner’s arm, the lack of tests on her implants, the way they were shown the mission statement _as_ they were heading towards the location, in the way they were left to their own devices by their agents as Hydra launched their own attack on this 'Nicholas J. Fury.'

It was broad daylight, and Washington D.C. was hardly a quiet city.

Her partner, however, went about the mechanics of testing his arsenal as calmly as he always did, and she tried to mimic his level-headedness. “Who do you think he is?” she asked, eyeing him out of the corner of her eye.

He tilted his head, considering. “Someone who knows something that he shouldn’t.” he said finally. There was a note of amusement in his voice and she smiled beneath her mask. _Wasn’t that everyone?_

“What if he is… a biochemist with the cure for the common cold.” she said idly. It was a game, and he indulged her, standing and offering her the hilt of her smallest knife she hadn’t realised he’d taken. It shone, freshly sharpened. 

She took it, pleased, and he hummed, the sound reverberating oddly in her ear. “Maybe he’s a secret agent.”

She smiled again. “For who?”

He shrugged. “The enemy.”

Ah, yes. _The enemy_. That faceless, nameless foe they were always vanquishing and struggling against. Hydra’s enemies, which became their enemies, their targets, the newest addition to their body count.

In the distance, she could hear the booming noises of explosions, the rattle of gunfire. So, subtlety had obviously failed, and it appeared brute force was failing too – as their communication units crackled. “**_Move in. Execute with extreme prejudice.”_**

Whoever had given the order was out of breath, and she looked at her partner.

He was already looking at her, angling his body towards her, ready for her. She stretched out to touch him, winding her fingers around his wrist, and pulled them both into the Grey.

* * *

The bullet-riddled car shouldn’t have been moving, and the man inside – their target – shouldn’t have been living, but where the others had failed, they would succeed. It was their purpose.

She could see him now, their target, frantic and slightly bloodied.

As they stepped out into the road, she let her partner go, and was rewarded by the sight of the man’s sudden fear as they appeared before him in the road. Her partner fired; the neat effectiveness of many years of training, and the disc grenade did its job, even as the car bore down on them.

With a great billowing explosion, the vehicle went flipping and spinning out of control. Her partner stepped neatly to the side as it roared past them, and she held her own ground, phasing out of tangibility and letting it pass through her. It came to a skidding stop down the road, and she straightened from her crouch as her partner shouldered the launcher and began to stalk towards the vehicle.

She followed silently, trying to ignore the skin-crawling feeling of being so exposed. The pedestrians were still scattering in panic, but it didn’t mean that they were invisible to them. It made her nervous. Between one step and the next, she disappeared from sight, and quickened her pace to hide her partner too. As she reached him, he tore the door from the car, tossing it carelessly away. She put a hand on his shoulder as they looked into the car.

They both stilled.

_The man was gone._

* * *

It was more embarrassment that was fuelling her own irritation as they scoured the streets.

She didn’t like the sensation of failure.

Never had.

It carried too many connotations of punishment, and besides – she _knew_ she was better than letting a man simply slip away. Whoever he was, he was certainly capable.

Her partner had dissolved into his quiet chill that he adopted on a hunt, and though she hadn’t seen him focussed in such a manner in a long time, she didn’t mind the silence between them as they tracked the man. She was half monitoring some surveillance footage as she followed her partner, though she knew in the back of her mind that she was unlikely to find any leads. Their target seemed to have – innate or trained – a sense of reconnaissance as he seemingly dropped off the grid.

But Washington wasn’t the largest city they’d hunted someone through, and she got the sense they were closing in, as they began to canvass the more residential areas.

“Здесь.” **_Up here._**

She looked up, up to where her partner had disappeared up a fire escape a few minutes ago, whilst she had lingered at street level. It was dark, but she was able to see a momentary glint of silver as he beckoned her once before disappearing over the lip of the apartment block again.

“Вы видите его?” **_Do you see him?_** She asked, hauling herself quickly up the building. He was crouched atop the opposite edge of the flat roof, rifle trained onto another building. She trusted his eyes; she couldn’t make out anything noteworthy through any of the windows.

“Не чисто.” **_Not cleanly._** He said, referring to the shot he would take.

A movement on the side of the building caught her eye, and she lowered herself to his level cautiously. She wasn’t so hard of sight to miss the man that had easily scaled the apartment block and was edging open a window to an apartment level with the window her partner had his eye on. “Там другая вечеринка.” **_There’s another party._** She warned him quietly, as the man slid through the small opening. He was clearly more dexterous than his larger build indicated.

Her partner shifted, a little uneasily. He knew as well as she, the risks of an assassination with another witness present. _But what could one man do?_ They looked at each other, both clearly having the same thought. By the time the shot was taken, they would already be ready to leave. And there wasn’t anything to stop them. “Мы в безопасности.” **_We’re secure._** Her partner decided, and hunkered back down over the rifle. “Приготовьтесь очистить.” **_Prepare to clear._** He said lowly, and she stood, waiting on near baited breath, for the quiet shot that would mark the end of the mission.

A light flickered on and off in the apartment, and even she could see the two figures outlined for a moment, before it went dark again. Her partner breathed a breath of frustration, and retrained his scope.

Three shots.

She could hear the man’s cry of pain from here, and her partner quickly pulled the rifle up and off the stand. She squinted, at the sudden motion in the apartment, and resisted the urge to tell her partner to hurry. When he finally stood, rifle slung over his shoulder, she turned and headed for the fire escape. The sudden crashing, tinkling sound of a window smashing behind them made them both turn – and she just caught the edge of a body crashing through the building below them. _Pursuit._ She broke into a run.

“Он ниже нас.” **_He’s below us._** Her partner bit out, voice tight, and she picked up her pace, as she heard the sounds of chaos in the building below them.

This shouldn’t be happening.

_Who was this guy?_

Her partner cleared the jump from their building to the next, and as she jumped after him, the heart clenching sound of more glass shattering behind her made her turn – to the sight of a circular metal object speeding towards her. She phased, and her partner’s arm shot directly through her, catching what she recognised with an odd sense of surprise, was a _shield._

The man who had thrown it at her had stopped there, seemingly shocked at their reaction.

She melted back, through her partner, dropping out of sight as she went, uncomfortable under the man’s clear-eyed gaze. He was oddly familiar; handsome in an all-American way, blond and blue-eyed, and built much the same as her partner.

But there was no more time to linger, and she put a warning hand to the nape of her partner’s neck. Savagely, he threw back the shield, and she blinked as the man caught it.

He shouldn’t have been able to do that either.

She pulled her partner into the Grey as the man looked down at the shield in his hands, and her partner turned, catching her up in his arms, and throwing them from the roof. The stomach flipping fall was broken hard, but her partner had always been more resilient than her, and he straightened from the tough landing without reaction. He set her down carefully, and she adjusted her grip on him, linking her fingers with his as they ran from the scene.

She looked over her shoulder as they went, catching sight of the man; peering over the building, looking for them.

* * *

**January 10th, 2014**

**Home of Alexander Pierce, Washington D.C.**

* * *

Her mission statement read Natasha Romanoff in bold font. The picture of her target was a technically unflattering one; an ID picture – yet the woman still looked beautiful. She would stand out in a crowd, and she had to re-read the section that described the woman’s exceptional espionage skills. She was, according to the file, incredibly dangerous, and a traitor. Both of the files were the longest she’d ever seen, perhaps due to the fact that these two were not ordinary people. For the first time, she felt a twinge of trepidation. She already recognized her partner’s target. It was the man with the shield. Her partner had read the report once, made a low confused noise, and then put it away.

They dropped noiselessly into the backyard of Pierce’s house.

He’d wanted to see them, for some reason, before they set off. Just another element that added to the foreboding in her gut.

Maybe it was spite that made them let themselves in without alerting the man. A subtle undermining of the position of authority he continuously tortured them with.

Her partner was more brazen than her, and sat at the man’s small dining table, placing his gun almost carelessly on the surface. She lingered behind him instead, still uneasy, hiding herself in the darkness. Without her mask, she felt barrierless – and despite the fact Pierce had seen her face before – she was still tingling with adrenaline, still on duty, and she wasn’t used to hunting without it. 

Footsteps sounded from the hallway, and she stilled in a patch of shadow, shifting out of sight, as her partner sat forwards slightly – a stream of moonlight falling across his eyes.

Pierce didn’t notice her partner until he had turned back around, a carton of milk in his grip. He didn’t jump but his eyes widened warily.

“I’m going to go, Mr. Pierce.” A female voice called from the other room, and they all stiffened. Pierce looked the most unsettled she’d seen him, and it eased something to see him so off-guard. _Easier to kill_, the cold inside her whispered. “You need anything before I leave?”

“No. It’s fine, Renata, you can go home.” Pierce called, eyes still locked on her partner.

“Okay, night-night.” Renata said cheerfully, and she listened to the woman disappear down the hallway, to the door shut.

Pierce moved then, “Want some milk?” he asked, a little mockingly. Without waiting for any response, he collected a single glass, and set about pouring the milk. “The timetable has moved. Our window is limited.” Our, the collective noun, the inclusive, near-patriotic reminder that all of Hydra were united. She flickered into being, and he flinched slightly. “Your two targets are level six. They already cost me Zola.” The name was familiar, and she’d heard it before. Her partner evidentially knew it; she watched the faint hitch in his breathing with interest. Pierce took a seat opposite her partner. “I want confirmed death in ten hours.”

The sound of footsteps made her look up, but it was already too late, and Renata appeared in the room. “Sorry, Mr. Pierce, I forgot my…phone…” She trailed off, eyes wide, looking between the three of them.

They were still, waiting for the order, but to her shock, Pierce turned and grabbed the gun himself. “Oh, Renata, I wish you would have knocked.” He fired, and Renata stumbled back with a scream. Pierce didn’t let up until she had stopped moving, sprawled against the glass.

_Ruthless._

Pierce was more dangerous than she had assumed.

He turned back around, and dropped the gun back on the table. “You’ll deal with that.” He said, sounding a little bored, and stood. “Ten hours.” He said again, and chugged the rest of his milk before turning to leave. They both waited until he had returned to his room before they moved.

Her partner met her solemn eyes with a hard face.

Ten hours was cutting it very, _very_ fine.


	11. Washington D.C., 2014

**January 11th, 2014**

**Downtown, Washington D.C.**

* * *

There had been a change of plans.

Instead of having to track them down, their targets seemed to have swapped secrecy for blatant abandon. One of the higher ranked agents had been kidnapped, and at this point, it was unlikely their targets were uninformed now. Sitwell wasn’t known for being particularly resilient and no one had any doubt that Sitwell had spilled what information he knew.

What ‘Project Insight’ exactly was, was still a little vague to her – all she knew was that it was Pierce’s end-all plan – Hydra’s final move. And now their targets, whom she was growing to realise were the antithesis to her and her partner, would move to stop it. Superheroes – that was the word she had been looking for – individuals who believed themselves on the right side of history, who worked to _save_ others, enhanced with skills and abilities civilians could only hope to possess.

_Did that make her and her partner villains?_

All her life, she’d had a job to do. All her life, she had been told she was bettering the future. All her life, she had never considered different.

Her eyes strayed to her partner, who was currently briefing the strike team they’d been allotted. Considering different meant leaving him. Which wasn’t an option. It hadn’t been an option for years now.

She clenched her fists, feeling the tight grip of the leather gloves of her uniform and trying not to think about the antithesis of anything, as the van took a tight turn and she swayed in place.

“Дух.” She looked up at her name, and found her partner standing. “Я возьму на себя инициативу.” **_I’ll take the lead._** He told her, and she nodded. “Следите за бродячими.” **_Watch for strays. _**She nodded again. She’d had enough of wriggly targets. She wouldn’t let them get away again. He moved past her, and disappeared out of the hatch, and for a moment, she heard the thump of his feet on the roof, and then he was gone.

She stood herself, and clicked once to gain the attention of the head of the squad. “Сохраняйте остроту и стреляйте, чтобы убить.” **_Keep sharp, and shoot to kill._** She told them, as the van began to speed up, heading to ram the car belonging to the targets. “Они не могут уйти.” **_They can’t get away._**

“Понял.” **_Understood._** The man inclined his head, and turned to bark out orders. The van rocked suddenly, with the force of their impact with the car, and she clutched at the wall to regain her balance. Her partner had returned to their truck, balanced on the front, and she watched through the windshield as the smaller vehicle spun out of control – flipping and crashing to a halt.

But the targets had already ejected themselves, and she watched as they drove past them. There was a third man with them now, and her eyes narrowed. “Солдат?” **_Soldier? _**She reached for his grenade launcher, considering the benefits of knocking them off long distance.

“Я вижу их.” **_I see them._** He replied tightly. “заниматься.” **_Engage_**_._

She jumped out of the truck, and handed him the weapon. He took it and fired in one stride, as the strike team emerged from the vehicle.

The man with the shield went flying, but in the flare of the explosion, she watched the red-head and the new man duck out of the way. “Открытый огонь.” **_Open fire._** She told the agents, and began to stalk towards them under the cover of bullets. The woman was returning fire, and she had to phase as three well-aimed shots went through her. She scowled and quickened her pace, her partner keeping stride.

The next grenade should have wiped her out, but the woman was faster than she had expected and was gone from the bridge before the smoke had cleared. Her partner jumped the barricade, and headed to finish the job as she headed towards the direction that the man with the shield had flown.

A sudden loud cracking shot made her turn, and for a moment, her heart was in her throat as she watched her partner sink back from the edge of the bridge. But he reached up, merely discarding his now-ruined goggles, and met her gaze. _He was fine._ He stood, and opened fire on the ground.

She tracked the woman as she ducked away and out of sight – and looked to her partner. He nodded, and she turned – leaping from the bridge, and phasing out of sight as she fell.

Her partner could handle the other two.

* * *

The red-head was fast, but she was faster, and she was able to track her path quickly – an explosion behind her alerting her to her partner’s movements.

The street she turned down was distinctly quieter, and she stilled, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. She phased back into tangibility and sight. It was far easier to track prey out of the Grey realm, and the sounds of the world sharpened immediately.

“_-I repeat, civilians threatened.”_

_There_.

She turned in the direction of the voice, the odd phrasing, and unholstered her handgun. She tracked the voice as best she could, crouching to try and see under the car two down from her position. Silently, she unclipped a small grenade, and rolled it gently towards her target.

That should end things. She stood as the explosion sent the car and surrounding curb up in flames and turned to leave. Her partner-

The sudden weight around her shoulders and neck made her grunt, almost toppling as she registered the abrupt attack, the gun going skittering out of her grip. The red-head was well-trained, and she was only just able to get a hand in-between the thighs that had closed with a vice grip around her neck. But the red head was still only human, and she wrenched her thighs open, phasing out of tangibility and spinning away from her. The woman went toppling to the ground at the sudden lack of support under her, rolling to her feet.

The woman – Natasha – she was reminded suddenly, turned on her, eyes going wide, and mouth opening as if to speak.

But she wasn’t inclined to give her the chance, not when she had a job to do – and she stooped, picking up the gun and lifting it. Natasha was already moving, her hand darting out – flicking a small disc at her – and as she pulled the trigger, it hit her square in the chest.

The sudden incapacitating burst of electricity made her shot go wide, and horrifyingly, made her implants go haywire, and she crumpled as pain made her vision go white. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone, and she opened her eyes to see her partner standing over her. He wordlessly crushed the small device and tossed it to the side before offering her a hand. He hauled her up, and without so much as a word, they started after Natasha. She was smarting, small bolts of electricity still sparking through her, and the irritation of being _beaten_ made her power forwards.

Natasha was screaming, thrusting civilians out of the way desperately, and though she broke into a sprint after the red-head – it was her partner who took the shot that made Natasha duck out of sight. She followed the woman’s path, and disappeared, leaping atop the bonnet of the car she was hiding behind – but as another faulty jolt of electricity coursed through her, she was forced out of the Grey. Natasha made a startled sound as she appeared, her own weapon in her grip, and she raised the gun again, ignoring her faintly seizing limbs.

Then she was knocked off of her feet, sent crashing to the ground, as something hit her in the face with all the force of one of her partner’s punches. She was woozy, but she rolled to her feet anyway, in time to see her partner engage his own target, who had caught the rebounding shield just in time to deflect her partner’s fist. She growled below her mask, shaking her head and trying to see through blurry, doubled vision, and the faulty eyeholes in her goggles. Natasha was getting to her feet, and she knew that if she didn’t strike now, she never could, and she impatiently unclipped the fastenings, and slid her helmet off of her head.

“Дух…” **_Ghost. _**Natasha looked as if she had been slapped, and she shook her head again, trying to get rid of the fuzziness. “Я знал, что это был ты.” **_I knew it was you._**

She made another wordless noise, confusion further spinning her head. “Я тебя не знаю.” **_I don’t know you._** She told the woman, and lurched at her.

Natasha was off-guard, foolishly staring still, and she landed a solid hit to the other woman’s chest that left her stumbling and winded. She spun, kicking out, and Natasha ducked away, mirroring her movement with a series of punches that she deflected. Rolling, she unsheathed a knife, and got to her feet. “Ты не помнишь?” **_Don’t you remember?_** Natasha’s Russian was perfect. Her head throbbed again, and she lashed out at the red-head, who attempted to deflect her stab. She gripped the woman’s wrist with her free hand, and pushed it away, the other woman forced to her knees in Natasha attempted to keep the knife away from her throat. “Ты не помнишь, Наталью?” **_Don’t you remember, Natalia? _**She panted, and for a moment, she wasn’t a woman, but a young girl, skinny and doe-eyed and ferocious, and better than any of the other candidates-

She snarled at Natalia – _Natasha – _and bore down harder.

_Phantoms and ghosts and imagination._

She had a mission. She was her mission.

“У меня все еще есть твои часы.” **_I still have your watch._**

_Burnished, but still shining, the watch had been with her for years – but she couldn’t keep it, it would be safe with her favourite, the little-thing that hadn’t known how to throw a punch, her малыш-_

Natasha took advantage of her distraction to slam her forehead into her face, and she felt her nose crunch painfully, blood spurting down her chin, and she tore herself free from the dizzying-confusing-mess in her head, as the woman rolled them over, and attempted to wrench the knife from her grip.

_She had a mission. She was her mission. _

She phased out of sight, out of touch, and left Natasha scrabbling for nothing on the ground before she reappeared and kicked the woman back, catching her sharply under her chin and sending her sprawling. Natasha was dazed, and as she crouched over her and raised the knife, her dull eyes triggered _another _surge of memory; _a car-wreck at the bottom of a cliff, Natalia curled around her target, blood spilling over her hands, leaving her to die-_

She stabbed at her blindly, unable to see or sense for the pounding, splitting pain in her head.

Natasha keened, and then she was sent flying again – literally – as something plucked her from where she loomed over Natalia and rocketed skywards with her. By the time she regained any sense, realising it was that third man, holding her, _winged_ and _flying_, she was already too high – but she phased out of his grip anyway and plummeted, and sensing his sudden descent after her, disappeared from sight as the ground rose to meet her, his grip missing her by inches.

She hit the ground hard, and it was all she could do to hold herself in the Grey, as she heard, more than felt, a sickening crack, and her vision wavered again.

She could just see her partner, raising a gun to his target, then knocked off course by the winged-man, then thwarted again by her own, bleeding target who had obtained his grenade launcher. He had ducked out of sight by the time the smoke had cleared – just in time – as a helicopter appeared.

The three still standing were surrounded by agents she dimly recognised, and knowing there was nothing more she could do just lying there, forced herself to roll over.

She nearly screamed as her broken ribs radiated white-hot pain down her side, and the kneecap she’d landed on slid around wetly.

Then;

“Дух?”

Her partner’s voice in her ear; blessed salvation.

She gritted her teeth. “Я не могу идти. Просто иди, на улице не безопасно.” **_I can't walk. Just go, it's not safe in the street. _**She said shortly. _As long as he made it back to base…_

“Не вариант.” **_Not an option._** His voice was quiet, but furious – and _close_. She turned her head to see him hurrying towards her, unmasked and scowling. “Не без вас.” **_Not without you. _**He said, just as he reached her position, and gripped her outstretched invisible hand with unnerving accuracy, and she pulled him out of sight with her. Even in the Grey realm, his stare was enough to make her shiver.

He lifted her carefully, and broke into a run, away from the scene behind them. They had failed, and all they could do was face the consequences.

* * *

They bound her ribs tight enough to stop them moving when she breathed, shot her up with enough painkiller to stand, even on her recently dislocated knee, and then she was bundled into one of the many technician rooms on base.

Her partner was already there, and she realised with horror, that he was sitting on the Chair as they inspected his arm.

_Why?_

Her eyes went to him, and he avoided her gaze, eyes distraught and far away. She looked to the other inhabitants of the room, as if they would explain. They didn’t, and when she was forced onto the stool next to him, her shirt hiked up to expose her implants she realised they weren’t looking at her, or him, but at the door. Waiting. Whatever the technician did to her main implant, the one just below the nape of her neck, at the centre of her spinal cord, made the faint, faulty pulses stop, and she relaxed muscles she hadn’t realised were tense.

Then her partner groaned, suddenly flinging himself forwards, face going slack. “_Bucky_.” He muttered to himself, and stood. She stiffened all over again, scrambling to tug her shirt down and get up off the stool, as he took a lurching step forwards. She grabbed him by the shoulders, and slammed him back down.

She recognised that look; it brought her back _years,_ brought her back to a dingy flophouse, brought her back to begging him to come with her, begging him to stop-

He tossed her aside like she was a doll, and she crashed into another technician. The guards on high alert turned on him, raising their weapons, and she got to her feet painfully.

“Don’t!” She told them. “I can calm him down-”

“Shut up.” The guard nearest her told her, and took a step towards her partner, who had stilled again and was muttering to himself. She moved between them, despite the unpredictability of her partner’s state of mind, she would still rather stand between him and a gun than leave him defenceless in that state.

But footsteps outside the cell sounded, preceding the entry of the man they had all been waiting for. The crisp click of dress shoes made her hackles raise, and she took a step back, trying to cover her partner further, as Alexander Pierce entered the cell.

“S-sir? They’re unstable, he’s erratic-”

Pierce waved off the man speaking, and turned his eyes on her. She held his gaze unwaveringly. There were still too many guns on them, and her desperation was rising by the second. Pierce lifted his hands. “Stand down.” The guns dropped, and she let out a little of the breath she hadn’t realised she had been holding. “You too. Or I just save some time, and kill him now.” One of the guards that had come in with him raised his gun, and she wavered. “Three. Two-” She stepped aside, letting them manhandle her away from the Chair. Pierce stepped closer to her partner, and slowly folded up his glasses, and stowed them away. “Mission report.” Her partner was silent.

“Targets escaped neutralisation, however-” she tried desperately, and one of the men holding her hit her broken ribs and she broke off, trying to hold back a cry.

Pierce ignored both her attempt, and the guard. “Mission report. Now.” He crouched slightly before her partner searching his face, before back-handing him savagely, her partner's head snapping around from the force of the slap. The wave of rage that rose in her at the contact surprised her, and she clenched her fists. Her partner blinked, eyes still lost, as he slowly turned his head back to face Pierce.

“The man on the bridge.” He looked confused, the same confused he had been back in New York, and her heart broke all over again. “Who was he?”

“You met him earlier this week, on another assignment.” Pierce said.

Her partner was silent for a moment, and then he looked at her. “I knew him.” He told her, and she nodded slightly. She believed him. _God_, she believed him. She had known that woman, that Natasha, Natalia – whoever she was – she had known her too; somehow, someway. _She had known her._

Pierce’s jaw worked, and he picked up the stool she had sat on, and seated himself in front of her partner. “Your work has been a gift to mankind. You and your partner have shaped the century.” Pierce told him, “and I need you do to it, one more time.” His voice was gentle, gentle in a way she was unused to – and yet – it somehow made the confusion worse. How was _anything_ they had done a gift?

“Society is at a tipping point, between order and chaos. Tomorrow morning, we’re going to give it a push.” Pierce said, almost smiling. “But, if you don’t do your part – I can’t do mine. And Hydra can’t give the world the freedom it deserves.”

Her head hurt, trying to make sense of everything. This was all she had known. _This was all she had known_-

“But I knew him.” Her partner said softly, brokenly.

Pierce just sighed, and stood. “Prep him.”

“He’s been out of Cryo too long.” One of the technicians piped up nervously.

Pierce fixed the man with an exasperated look. “Then wipe him. And start over.”

“No.” It came out of her like a cry, and Pierce turned to look at her, incredulous. “It’ll _hurt_ him like that – you promised-”

“Make her watch.” Pierce said, face suddenly hard, and turned to go.

She struggled against the sudden vice grip of the men holding her, and phased out of their grip – but her implants were already activating – and she was hauled to her feet again and shoved onto the stool directly in front of the Chair. Her partner lay back, near compliant, and took the bit into his mouth as they began to hook him up. His eyes met hers, and she struggled again at the destroyed look there, tears building in her eyes as they held her still.

She had to watch him scream, watch the light fade from his eyes, watch him forget whatever precious thing he had regained, watch him _break_ again.


	12. Washington D.C., 2014

**January 12th, 2014**

**SHIELD Headquarters, Washington D.C.**

* * *

The cement beneath her began to rumble, and above her, the ceiling began to peel away. The Helicarriers began to take to the air, the final step of the plan in motion.

It was time.

She looked to her partner, who nodded once to her, before he turned and split from her position. Light blinded her for a minute, as the Helicarrier was completely exposed. She held her ground, unwilling to disappear just yet, wanting to save as much of her energy as she could. This was their final stand; the two of them against their targets, against the forces trying to dismantle Hydra’s move. Pierce had initially wanted them on a carrier each – but even he had come to the realisation that their separation would only weaken their defence.

She was beginning to feel a sense of numb resignation. She knew, innately, that these people _would not stop._ It loomed over her, chilling her already cold body, making her limbs heavy with reluctance. It was the closest she had ever felt to helpless.

And she was _angry_ too – angry at Pierce, angry at the people that had held her partner down and ruined him – and that only fuelled her desire to just lie down and be overrun by these fanciful heroes.

But she could not.

Not whilst her partner was so compromised. After the Chair, as per usual, he’d reverted to the coldest parts of himself, single-minded and ruthless – and obedient. He could not stop, and so she would not stop either.

She crouched, waiting, eyes on the sky as she rose up.

* * *

Explosions drew her eye, and she turned to catch the shining form of the winged-man, dodging the fire from the second carrier’s larger cannons. He had a grace to him in the air, unusual for a normal man, and she watched him, almost _hoping_ he would escape the heavy fire.

No doubt he would come for her first, when he finished his task.

She had no doubt he would – the Hydra agents protecting the other carriers were woefully outmatched. As she watched, he ducked and spun, disappearing from view, closely followed by a jet. From her other side, the other carrier was alight in gunfire in much the same way, and the calm atop the one she stood upon felt like the eye of a storm. When the fire atop the other carriers ceased, she stood, and took a steadying breath.

“Они скоро будут здесь.” **_They’ll be here soon. _**She said, into the silent channel.

A faint noise from her partner. “Мы готовы.” **_We’re ready._** He said, a promise. “Я беру самолеты.” **_I’m taking the jets._**

She turned, in time to see the beginnings of her partner’s havoc, behind her, as he systematically dismantled the jets, and their pilots. _No one left alive_. It beat in her chest for a moment, and then she caught sight of the winged-man, carrying the male target, and turned to face them. They looked almost surprised to see her standing there, and picked up their pace. She calculated the distance left between them, if she could manage two shots fast enough.

But she was not her partner.

He appeared suddenly from between two storage units, and kicked his target from the carrier. She was already running, sliding underneath the winged-man as her partner tossed him over his shoulder. She grasped her partner by the shoulders, just in time for the machine gun fire to go harmlessly through them. The winged-man yelled in frustration, and made to fly off, but she reached around her partner, and fired a grappling dart at one of his wings, and jerked him back to earth with all her strength.

His wing came clattering off, and her partner ran at him as he struggled to his feet – and kicked him squarely in the chest, sending him flying from the carrier in much the same fashion as his ally. She retracted her grappling wire, and looked over at her partner from where he still stood at the lip of the carrier. It was strange, seeing him with his face bare. He hadn’t retrieved his mask, and there had been no order to fashion another one, so he was exposed. She wondered if it bothered him. He turned to her. “Он все еще на борту.” **_He’s still onboard._** He said furiously, and she shoved the grappler back into her belt and moved to join him, catching sight of the blue-suited man still climbing doggedly into the carrier.

“Он пойдет в обходную.” **_He’ll be going to the circuit room._** she said tiredly. Her partner nodded, and for a moment his eyes were unfocussed. “В чем дело?” **_What’s wrong?_** She asked him hesitantly.

He blinked, eyes sharpening. “Nothing.” He muttered, and turned from the man, from her. Unease bit deeper in her gut, and she moved after him, a silent shadow to his brooding form.

* * *

They waited for him there, facing the entrance, facing the thin bridge, and though she had seen the way he had looked at the bridge with another flash of _something_, she hadn’t protested as he placed himself squarely in the centre of it.

They didn’t have to wait long, as the man’s footsteps sounded on the stairs, and his form appeared in the doorway. She faded into nothing, as he stepped slowly onto the bridge. The desperate way he was staring at her partner made something ugly stir within her.

“People are going to die, Buck.” His voice was loud in the silence, and her partner twitched. “I can’t let that happen.” His mouth wavered, and then he spoke again, and his voice was so despairing that she flinched from him. “Please don’t make me do this.” And then she realised what the emotion in the man’s eyes was – _longing –_ and she realised that this man knew her partner too. And she thought of the heartbroken, wet eyed state of her partner before they had wiped him as she stepped through him – and punched the blue-eyed man square in the jaw.

He reeled back, eyes wide in shock, shield coming up automatically, and the speed of it made her next swing lance off its hard surface painfully enough to shatter something in her fist. The little gasp she let out must have caught his attention, because then he was swinging at her. She turned visible, just for a moment, to catch his attention, making him turn away from her partner.

Whatever reluctance he had to fight her partner clearly didn’t apply to her; as he rained blows upon her with a force that rivalled her partner’s own. She found herself backing up, relying on her abilities. Desperation was fuelling his movements, and it was a dangerous mix, and she realised too late that she may have misjudged the man – as his shield came up with startling accuracy and slammed into her invisible chest with enough force to send her over the rails to the glass below.

The fall jolted her still broken ribs, and she groaned, flickering out of the Grey to try and stifle her noise of pain. She was winded, and she had to push herself to breath evenly, to make herself focus. Above her, her partner had already sprung to engage the man, and she forced herself to her feet, and leapt for the base of the circuit board, hauling herself up the metal structure as her bruised and battered torso screamed in protest.

She reached the top as the man had switched the circuit board around, her partner sprawled some feet away, and threw herself at him as he reached for the datachips. He grunted as her arms locked around his throat, but was forced into raising his shield against her partner as he sprung at the man with bared teeth. Despite her pressure around his throat, he managed to catch her partner’s arm as he swung at him with a knife, and for a moment they were all locked in a play of strength, as her partner pushed, and she pressed and he withheld.

And then his shield came down, pressing in-between her partner’s metal plating, and she heard the resisting whine of his engineering, before the man twisted, and the knife came jerking forwards – through the space where the man’s torso had been – and right into the flesh of her upper thigh.

She relinquished her hold on his throat automatically, her partner looking to her momentarily in regret, before his focus snapped back to the man. She stumbled back as her partner was thrown away again, and pulled the knife free from her thigh with a wet noise.

The man was moving quickly, hands ripping the datachip from the board, and fumbling in his belt for a different one. She threw herself forwards as best she could with her weakened leg, and drove the knife blindly into him. He cried out, sinking to the ground slightly, still managing to deflect her partner’s swing that resounded off his shield with a sound loud enough to make her ears ring.

Finally, they fought together, and the man was forced out of reach of the circuit board, hard-pressed to keep them both at bay. She felt a surge of hope, because together, they were well-oiled and deadly, and they knew each other well enough to keep in sync, to take him _down_-

But her partner was angry, angry in a way she hadn’t seen before, and she watched hopelessly as he charged the man, sending them both over the edge. They landed on one of the metal platforms she had crashed into earlier, and her eyes went to the datachip that skidded out of the man’s grip. 

She jumped, landing behind her partner with eyes on the chip, but she caught the man’s attention and he turned away from her partner in favour of grabbing at her, yanking her back by the collar of her uniform and making her choke briefly as he tossed her back. His distraction cost him, and her partner slammed his fist into the man’s chest, sending him flying head over heels – and closer to the chip.

She was already sliding towards him as his hand closed around the chip, and grappled with him, phasing her hand _through_ his fist as she held his other hand at bay, and snatched it from him. He brought his leg up between them, and kicked her and she had an odd second where gravity was displaced as her arms wheeled for balance, and then she – still with the chip in her grip – went toppling off the platform.

Her landing on the glass made it shudder worryingly, and she only had a moment of wide-eyed, pained shock as her partner came falling towards her before she managed to roll out of the way of his body. The glass made a creaking noise under her partner’s landing, and she got to her feet, eyes on the exit.

A foot went slamming into her ankles, sweeping her off her feet, and then the man was stop her, pinning her hands above her head, and forcing her fists open. She flickered invisible, and for a moment his hands stilled in confusion, and she tossed the chip from herself – and it skittered away from them again. He raised his fist, half an eye on chip, other hand feeling out where her body was, and then hit her with all his might.

She heard the glass crack beneath her head, vision going white for a moment as she lay there dazed. By the time her eyes refocussed, she could hear the sounds of combat behind her. She struggled to her side, head swimming worryingly.

The sight of her partner in a tight chokehold made her cry out, and try to rise.

A sharp wave of nausea rose in her throat, and she had to duck her head, clenching her mouth shut as she began to crawl towards them.

“Stop!” she cried, as her wounded leg gave out, and she fell to her belly as her partner gurgled in the man’s grip.

“Drop _it_!” the man retorted, voice wild, and she wasn’t sure if he was talking to her partner, or to her as she slowly made her way over to them. Her hand reached out, just making contact with her partner’s foot – but she could see it was too late, and even as she made one last surge towards them – her partner went limp.

The man didn’t spare her a look as he snatched up the datachip and sprinted for the circuit board. She gripped onto the raised lip of a metal bar, and heaved herself up, even as her vision wobbled and the edges whitened. She dragged herself upright, making her way after the man.

_A minute. A minute longer._

She just had to stay conscious for a minute longer, keep him occupied for a minute longer. Hand over hand, she dragged her full body weight up, unable to put weight on her damaged leg, blood still running from the wound and soaking her uniform. A gun shot – and the man above her crumpled, slowed by the wound. She looked over her shoulder to see her partner standing. She took a breath, and took advantage of his momentary pause to try and catch him.

Another shot.

Impossibly, the man was still moving, and she felt like her whole body was going to stop working.

She dragged herself over the railing as the man reached the circuit board, and fumbled at her holster, pulling out her own gun – and levelling it at him as he reached for the board.

She squeezed the trigger and he slumped with a grunt, blood bursting from his abdomen at her sloppy shot. But _finally _he fell, eyes wide with the horror of a dying man, and she let her hand fall as her world tilted painfully on its axis. Dimly, she was aware of a wet heat inside her helmet, realising her head must be split somewhere.

Then – he groaned again, and twisted his torso, fresh red spreading through the blue of his uniform – and he _moved_. She tried to lift her gun again, but her vision was doubled, and she couldn’t hold the weapon steady.

She threw it down angrily, and rolled towards him instead, dragging herself towards him – but just as she managed to grip his ankle, his body went loose with relief, and she heard the faint blip of the chip being accepted. He fell back. “Charlie lock.” He gritted out. His eyes went to her, where she was still pathetically trying to drag herself towards him. His blue gaze was tired, resigned. “Fire now.” He said, holding her gaze. She could feel it through her mask. “DO IT! DO IT NOW!” he roared suddenly.

Very suddenly, she realised she was going to die.

Her hand fell from his ankle, and from outside the carrier she heard the sound of thunder, the sound of ammunition, of approaching death. Maybe she was too concussed to think about it properly, but even so, the realisation did not fill her with an adrenaline to run, to save herself, to get out whilst she could.

No, a very numbing calm spread through her, and she rolled to lie on her back, the position helping her ribs somewhat as the Helicarrier shook around her.

Then – a scream.

She sat up, turning to her partner, turning to see him flattened, pinned beneath a metal support. The man who should have been dead was on his feet. “Help him.” She blurted out.

His eyes went to her, faint surprise there. “What?”

“You know him.” She rasped, voice thick. He nodded slightly, just as exhausted as her, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “He knows you.” She said. He didn’t say a word, but when another wave of pain made her eyes roll back, he was gone when her vision returned.

She could hear him, hear him straining against the metal. She could hear the man, telling her partner _you know me, you know me, you know me-_

When her eyes opened again, the ceiling above her was on fire, and her partner was screaming _you’re my mission, you’re my mission, you’re my mission-_

She thrust herself back into consciousness just in time, the metal grating beneath her tilting crazily, offering a view of the glass below her, of her partner staring at the hole there, blood on his face, on his fists. She let herself fall, another bone jarring impact, but closer to him. He turned to her, eyes wild. There was no sign of the man, but she knew that something had snapped in her partner. She eyed the water below them, eyed her partner’s frenzied face, his still body. _If he didn’t leave now, he never would. _

She reared up – and pushed him out of the Helicarrier.

His face went flat in surprise, and then he was too far away for her to see, just a form hurtling towards the foaming water below.

A crashing creak above her, and then the roof fell towards her in a shower of metal and fire. She turned, cowering away – and screamed as she was pinned between the glass and burning shrapnel. Only for a moment, because in the next, she breathed, and melted through the glass.

And then she was falling.


	13. Washington D.C., 2014

**January 12th, 2014**

**Potomac River, Washington D.C.**

* * *

She came to slowly, to the sensation of wind on her face, and opened her eyes to blue sky above her, unimpeded by the filtration of her visor. For a moment, panic made her scramble, taking stock of her body’s weakened state, and she tried to get to her feet, tried to get out of the vulnerable position she found herself in.

A hand planted itself gently in the centre of her chest, and pushed her back flat. She eyed the silver plating, and then turned to look at her partner. His eyes weren’t on her, but as she stilled, he lifted his hand. The gentle sound of water lapping against sand, and the scent of the unique dankness of freshwater told her that they hadn’t moved very far from where they had fallen. _It wasn’t safe to linger. _Slowly, she sat up, wincing at the sharp pain in her ribs, at the ache of her chest that made it hard to draw breath. She almost panicked again, as she realised what the wet, blue mass at her feet was.

The man was lying on his back, but someone – her partner – had given him rudimentary bandaging, made up of his shredded spare sleeve, and some of her own uniform. He was still, but she could see the faint flush of life in his cheeks. He was made of hardier stuff than his pretty face suggested. Though she had known that already; images of the man pressing on through three bullets, knocking her out with one punch, breaking her partner’s arm-

She blinked, and pressed her lips tightly together, trying to suppress the discomfort from spilling out.

“Can you walk?” Her partner’s voice was hoarse, and she turned to look at him. His eyes were still on the man, but his fingers were twitching with unease.

She shrugged. “I’ll manage.”

Finally, he met her eyes, and she almost wished she hadn’t; the utter turmoil there only adding to her own sense of loss.

_What did they do now?_

* * *

They left the man there. Whatever had pushed her partner to recognise him, to drag him from the river clearly didn’t extend to taking him along, and even if he had wanted to, she didn’t think she would have let him. They hobbled together, her on her damaged leg, him pressing through exhaustion.

She pushed herself harder as they moved away from the river; there were too many eyes, too many cameras, too much danger, and they were too tired to attempt to sneak through it. Instead, she pulled them both into invisibility, trying her hardest to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

They were only a block from the base when her legs gave out, and they flickered into sight for a moment as she struggled to keep the bile rising in her throat down. Her partner didn’t waver, simply gathering her in his arms, broken and metal, and carried her onwards. The Ideal Federal Savings Bank loomed ahead of them, its imposing façade looking decidedly less so, and they ducked into the cool, dark of the entrance hall relievedly.

They rested there for another long moment, both of them breathing heavily, both of them trying to push aside the physical pain they were in, because command could contact them at any second, and they had to be ready to move. Succumbing to injury was as much a mental battle as it was physical, and both of them had trained to keep themselves moving past the point when they should have stopped. Now, it seemed, they were nearing their limit.

But as minutes passed, then an hour, then another hour and nothing happened – no voice in their comm-units, no call from the base below them, indeed not even an enemy knocking on the great bank doors – her partner stood.

Protocol said to return to base if a mission was disrupted. Protocol said to return to base if they found themselves without contact in the field. Protocol said-

She blinked.

She’d watched the helicarriers fall, she’d seen SHIELD in flames, she’d come face to face with the hero responsible.

Was it possible that their protocol was gone? That they were untethered?

She stood, using the large stone pillar she had been propped against as a crutch, and took unsteady steps towards her partner. He was facing the elevator that would take them to base level, as if waiting for a signal.

She was beginning to think that a signal would not come, but in turn, equally afraid to think of such a thing.

“Should we-?”

“We should-”

They spoke at the same time, turning to look at each other in mild surprise. She nodded. “You’ll have to take point.” She said reluctantly, casting a look down at her leg. It had stopped bleeding by the river, but moving on it had only reopened the wound, and it had bled through the fabric he’d bound it with.

He nodded, and unholstered his gun, heading for the elevator. She shadowed him as closely as she could, one hand curled slightly into the material of his uniform, ready to pull him to safety.

It was just as deathly quiet in the base as it had been in the bank, and it made her skin prickle with goose bumps. _Wrong_. This was wrong. Then – a sound, from one of the technician’s rooms down the hall. They turned as one, her partner raising his weapon unerringly, and they moved towards the faint rustling, the snatch of a voice.

She shifted through her partner, leaning through his torso to push open the door, leaving him free to keep his gun at the ready, and they stepped through – startling the two men that had been pulling through the cabinets into screaming. She winced at the shrill sound. She recognised them, as they turned around warily, two technicians that usually focussed on her partner’s arm. The taller of the two was staring at them with wide fearful eyes.

“The targets were eliminated.” Her partner said, a little uncertain in his lie, but how could she blame him – if it would return them to normalcy than a small lie was acceptable.

The two men exchanged a look. “Okay.” The shorter one said, hands still raised defensively. “Soldier, I need you to put down the weapon, and let us leave.”

“Why?” she asked, she couldn’t help herself. The men looked at her.

“B-because.” The shorter one began. “Because Hydra is-”

“What about protocol?” Her partner interrupted him, gun wavering.

The taller one let out a disbelieving breath. “Listen. Hydra is _gone_, and if you have any sense of your own, you’d get out of here. We can’t help you-”

Her partner shot him, swift and suddenly, and then turned the gun on the other man. “_What about protocol?”_ he asked, voice dangerous.

The man’s hands rose up above his head, and his face crumpled. “Please! I have a baby! I have a baby-girl-”

“What about protocol?!” her partner roared, and his hands shook.

“_Please-”_

She couldn’t bare it any more, the noise making her head ache, and she pressed her forehead into her partner’s back. “Нам нужно уйти.” **_We need to leave._** She whispered wearily.

Her partner stilled. “Как?” **_How?_** He asked her, both of them ignoring the man now blubbering on his knees.

“Я не знаю. Но здесь не безопасно. Они придут за нами.” **_I don't know. But it's not safe here. They'll be coming for us._**

She didn’t know. She didn’t know how to just step away, but she knew that every second they lingered here, _someone_ would be getting closer – Hydra, or SHIELD, or the state, or the man with the shield, or the woman she should have killed – someone would come and take them.

Finally, her partner nodded, and turned to face her. “Все вместе.” **_Together._**

“Пожалуйста.” **_Please._** She said, a little disgusted at the note of pleading in her tone.

They left the man there, and went to their little room, stripping their bed of sheets and re-bandaging themselves as best they could, and she fashioned a makeshift covering for her partner’s arm. It would have to do until they got new clothing. They removed their communication units, fished out the small tracker from her collar, from the breast pocket of his uniform, and scrubbed off their faces as best they could.

And then, miraculously, impossibly, they just _left._

* * *

They had to sleep that first night, unable to fight the artificial sleep in their blood, falling where they stood in the alleyway behind a closed-down toy store.

She woke first, and managed to drag her partner further out of sight whilst he slept on, watching the street for movement, clinging to a knife and her gun. When he woke, a few hours after the sun had begun to lighten the sky, but before the world woke fully, they kept moving.

With every step, she expected a hand on her shoulder, a bullet in her back, a voice calling after her.

But there was nothing.

Their faces were all over the news, and the whole country was after them, but she wasn’t afraid of the police, wasn’t afraid of the FBI, and SHIELD was in ruins. The only ones that could have found them were Hydra, and there had been nothing to suggest they were being tracked.

They sheltered with the homeless community for the next few days, constantly awake and on guard. On the fourth day, she grew bold enough to slip into a diner and empty their register, silent and invisible, and then into a local donation shop to take some clothes that she thought would fit them.

She had been leaving, when her eyes went to the costume section, to the small collection of wigs. She’d caught sight of herself in a window a day ago, and had never been so aware that she stood out with her buzzcut and scarred scalp. Her partner had stared at her when she returned, and she had scratched at the itchy black wig self-consciously, but then the moment had passed and they were on the move again.

They couldn’t leave the country. Not now, not whilst the events were still fresh in the minds of the public, not whilst border forces were on such high alert. But they couldn’t stay either.

They were stuck in an uncomfortable limbo; strung with constant tension, unable to fight, unable to flee.


	14. Washington D.C., 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to eileenalone; I hope this little bit of brightness makes you smile!

**January 17th, 2014.**

**Motel 6, Washington D.C.**

* * *

She couldn’t sleep.

She had been awake for hours now. Too many hours to count; she thought she must have seen three sunsets and sunrises since that first terrified night. It was taking a toll on her, taking a toll on her partner too. 

They could only be hyper-vigilant for so long, and every waking moment only exacerbated the exhaustion they couldn’t escape. It was as if her body _couldn’t_ shut down, wouldn’t give into the desperate tiredness that was overwhelming her. And she was overwhelmed; not just exhausted, but in pain, a hard, tight knot in her stomach she’d never felt before, a weakness in her limbs and a fuzz over her eyes when she moved too quickly.

She didn’t know how to fix it, how to fix _any_ of it.

Her partner made a small noise from where he was sat on the chair facing the window. They’d drawn the blinds tightly shut, but he’d left a small gap to see out of. He looked as terrible as she felt; growing gaunter by the day, dark circles heavy under his eyes, pale and pinched looking. He had winced, hand over his stomach.

“Мы слишком слабы.” **_We’re too weak._** She said. Her voice was hoarse, throat dry and scratchy.

He turned his head slowly to look at her, blinking hard. “What do we do?”

She couldn’t even shake her head, couldn’t shrug. “I don’t know. But if they come, we won’t be able to fight back.”

He scowled. “Они не возьмут нас.” **_They won’t take us._** She wasn’t so sure that they couldn’t. Not in this state.

She slowly rose to her feet. “I’m going to try and rest.” She said, shuffling over to the small twin bed. She didn’t bother getting under the sheets; the place was filthy enough to warn her off trusting the bed’s covers. “You should try too.”

“Someone needs to keep watch.” He argued a little. She rolled over delicately, trying hard to avoid upsetting her splitting headache. “Besides…” he looked uncomfortable. “I won’t. I can’t.”

She regulated her breathing, slowing it deliberately. “I can’t either. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try again.” She laid a hand lightly atop the mattress beside her. “Давай.” **_Come on._**

He moved just as slowly as her, both of them unwilling to show their pain, but also unwilling to make it worse. His jaw tightened momentarily as his head hit the pillow, and she reached out her hand again, retracting it again at a sudden wave of uncertainty.

Whilst the position wasn’t unfamiliar – they’d spent many nights face to face like this – it had never been whilst so… sober, the only word she could find describe the situation. Wide-eyed and awake, they stared at each other. His eyes were reddened by the long waking hours, but his silver-blue irises were clear. Every little shift of their bodies, everywhere they touched – shin to knee, arm to chest, fingertips to skin – she was hyper aware of him.

She closed her eyes anyway; hoping that somehow, miraculously, sleep would find her.

It didn’t. Not at first anyway.

She was sure it had been another hour before her body relaxed, minutely, giving itself over to the familiarity that came with the solid presence of his body next to her own.

For the first time since Hydra had fell, they slept unaided.

* * *

She woke to the sounds of voices, but her partner was still beside her, and she could hear the slightly elevated pace of his breathing, meaning he was awake. So, she stayed where she was, clinging to the warmth of sleep still settled around her.

But her partner was just as aware of her consciousness as she was of his, and shifted beside her. “We need to eat.”

“Eat?” Her mind was foggy, and for a moment the concept was far more foreign than it should have been. She knew, of course, what it meant to _eat_, but she had never performed the act herself. She’d been supplemented intravenously for as long as she could remember.

“Yes. Eat.” Her partner said firmly. She sat up, still feeling weak, but her head had stopped it’s aching – and took in the scene on the television in front of them. There was food on the screen, people laughing and talking, some kind of cooking show. Despite the unfamiliarity of it, her stomach made a loud sound, and she looked down at herself in shock. The corners of her partner’s mouth turned up slightly.

“Eat.” She echoed again, and swallowed. “What?”

Her partner shrugged. “I don’t know. I can go find something.”

“Not alone.” Her voice was firm, and as he stood, she swung herself determinedly out of bed. He nodded easily, and held out his hand for her. She took it, and they walked straight through the wall together, into an overcast day. Invisible, but tangible, she shivered at the cold wind that rushed over her skin. She still felt naked; without her suit. She wondered if he did too.

They headed for the vending machine under the stairs, her partner keeping watch in the shadows as she reached through the glass and pulled out everything she could get her hands on. All the bright plastic and foil packagings were unrecognizable, and she had no idea what any of the items were, what their nutritional value was. All she knew was that they had to be quick.

They were back in their room within the minute, untraceable, efficient.

The packages spilled out across their bedsheets in a messy tumble, and they both stood for a moment, a little bemused, staring at all the food.

Her partner moved first, picking up a small brown bar with large writing proclaiming it a ‘SNICKERS’. Gingerly, he tore open the plastic, exposing an equally brown bar, with a raised ribbing trailing the length of it, almost like a vein. He held it for a second longer before he swapped hands with a faint frown. “It’s melting.” He said, holding out his flesh fingers to show her the brown smudge that had come off on his fingertips. Her nose wrinkled. It certainly didn’t look appetising. He raised it to his nose and sniffed, faintly concerned face clearing. “Sweet.” He grunted, and she leant in to sniff at it too. It smelt sickly and rich. _Definitely _sweet_. _He took a small bite, eyes widening.

She leant forwards again, intrigued, and he offered her the end of it. She bit into it, immediately recoiling at the thick heavy sweet flavour that rolled across her tongue. “_Too_ sweet.” She told him.

He shook his head, almost delighted, as he finished the bar in another two bites, cheeks full. “_So_ good.” He mimicked her.

She couldn’t help but smile slightly, choosing her own packet this time. It was one of the brightest things on the bed, orange, yellow and red, with a spotted cat on the front and flames up the sides. “H-hot cheat-oss.” She sounded out uncertainly, and opened the packet in one motion. The smell was immediately up her nose, salty, savoury and… _spicy_. She was intrigued, and sniffed again, peering at the vibrant red things. She fished one out, transferring it from hand to hand, and showing off her own coloured transference to her partner, wiggling her red-stained fingertips at him. She took the end off, crunching loud enough to make her startle. It tasted – well, strange – but so much better than the Snickers, and she put the rest of the Cheeto in her mouth before she’d even finished chewing her first bite. It was making her tongue tingle, and her mouth heat, but she found she rather liked the sensation. Her partner took one for himself, bravely putting the whole things in his mouth – and immediately spitting it back out.

“Hot! Um, spicy.” He said, glaring at the offending snack.

She wiggled a little, content with her choice. “I like it.”

He shook his head, and reached for another Snickers, whilst she continued to shovel her food into her mouth whilst browsing the other snacks. She picked up another red packet, and was happy to find an almost equally salty, crunchy square shaped snack inside. Red seemed the way to go.

They got through every single last packet, the hesitation they’d both held at the first bite fading as the impulse to stuff themselves took over. It was only after she’d stilled, crumpling the last packet she’d finished in her grip, did her stomach roil uncomfortably.

She was no stranger to nausea; but this time, it felt more visceral, what with something to _actually_ throw up, sitting heavy in her stomach. She stood, and hurried to the bathroom, dropping to her knees in front of the toilet, just in time, as she violently threw up everything she’d just consumed. The sounds of gagging next to her at the sink clued her in that her partner was suffering just as much as she was.

When the sick feeling finally abated, her stomach empty again, she sat back weakly. Her partner sighed, and turned on the tap, the smell of vomit heavy in the air.

“We have to try again.” She said.

He nodded, looking a little queasy again at the thought of it, and she couldn’t deny that her own stomach flipped again at the notion of eating more rich food. “Not…not that.” He said, looking back into the bedroom, at the colourful wrappers strewn about.

She nodded in agreement. “Not that. Yet.” She also couldn’t deny she had liked the taste of the snacks, but there was no way her body would be able to handle any more processed food right then.

They cleaned themselves off, gulping down mouthfuls of warm water to stave off any immediate hunger, before they set out again. It was a little easier this time; they had a mission now, and having a mission was something they both knew.

* * *

**January 28th, 2014**

**Washington D.C.**

* * *

She took her time waking.

Since discovering sleep, she often found herself reluctant to leave it. Of course, she could only find sleep beside her partner – though she knew it wasn’t ideal, she would use the method until she could sleep by herself – but if he left before she woke, she could usually cling to the dregs of it.

Today was no different.

He’d left right before dawn, she waking with him, dimly aware of his muttered Russian explanation, the sounds of him gathering fresh clothes, the smell of the protein bar he had eaten quickly, before leaving near soundlessly. He was going back to the museum.

The Smithsonian, it was called, the biggest collection of _things_ that she’d ever seen. She’d been with him once, the first time, when they’d went to see the exhibit on the man with the shield. Steve. She knew his name now. They’d left when she’d spotted a picture of her own partner’s face, both becoming so confused that they’d travelled past their hideout before they’d shaken themselves out of the bewildered state. Her partner had led the drive more so than she had, seemingly intent on running from the man, from the photo, until he’d come back to himself.

He visited by himself now.

She didn’t resent the fact, didn’t resent the strange spaced out state he went to every time he came back, didn’t resent the small book he’d bought and wrote in, kept hidden and secret.

He kept returning to her, that was all that mattered to her.

He would speak to her when he was ready, if there was even anything to speak about.

Besides, she took her own field trips; she explored the world around her with extreme interest, spent hours just watching, touching, smelling, experiencing the world with an emotion that could have been awe.

Today, she had plans to go into a _café._ That was what they were called here – and she’d been staking out a particular one for some time. It was quiet, not particularly busy, and had three viable escape routes. She wanted to smell it, wanted to hear the barista’s laugh – she’d watched the woman through the window, smiling at the occasional customer – wanted to taste coffee. Yesterday, she had gone into a record shop nearby, just for a few minutes – but when she had been in there she’d heard a song that had made her walk right back out again – and she was determined to return, to ask the name of the song, to try and understand why she had run from it.

She wore a different wig today; she’d found a red one the colour of a hot Cheeto, and despite the blatant risk of such gaudy colour, liked it enough to risk the danger of being spotted with it. To appease the little warning voice in her head, she did put on a black hat over the top, and dressed the rest of the way in black too. There. Slightly more anonymous. She slipped out through the back, taking a moment to feel the cold wind on her fingers before she pulled on her gloves.

* * *

All the people in the block radius of the record shop and café were all dressed a certain way, and though she had dressed for anonymity, she still stood out against the leagues of men with waxed beards and rounded glasses, the women in little berets, flannels and hiking boots that looked like they’d never been worn hiking before. It was almost like a uniform; and they all seemed to have reusable cups in hand as they strode confidently from place to place.

At least her coloured hair didn’t seem to be unusual. She counted three women and one man with pink hair before she’d even rounded the corner to the café. It was interesting. She found she honestly didn’t mind the look of it, even if she didn’t understand why some of the women were wearing little denim shorts – even with their patterned tights beneath them, they had to have been freezing.

She paused for a moment right outside the café, wondering for a moment if it would help to get a pair of these oversized glasses; she was sure they were just an accessory for many people, she’d seen a few of the frames without lenses in them. Dismissing the thought, she pushed open the door.

It jangled more noisily than she expected, and she jumped slightly, looking up to eye the bright gold bell affixed to the top of the door.

The _whole_ place was louder than she had expected; the music up loud enough to hide the conversations of a couple of serious looking students with their laptops open in front of them, the large silver coffee machine loudly banging and hissing away, and when she looked over to the counter, the girl standing behind the yellow-painted wood frame gave her a wave and a loud greeting; “Hello! Welcome to The Orchid Garden!”

She nodded, unsure whether or not she should reply, or wave back. She settled on just the nod, and cautiously approached the counter as the young woman ducked back behind the large machine. A few moments later, she slid a pair of matching reusable cups onto the pick up counter. “Two Americanos for Casandra?”

A woman with her head in her phone looked up with a start, and hurried to collect the steaming cups, turning just as quickly and silently and leaving again. The young woman watched her go with a faintly bemused look. “And goodbye to you too.” She heard her say faintly under her breath. “Hipsters.” She muttered next, wiping down one of the many arms of the machine with a cloth she tucked back into her equally yellow apron. She watched her with interest. The girl’s short hair was yellow too, a shade darker and yet brighter than the yellow counter and apron, with two orange strips framing her fringe, dark roots showing a little, and she had four clips shaped like little butterflies twisting her fringe up and out of her face, but a few strands had fallen out of their hold.

She was without a doubt, the most vibrant little creature she’d ever seen. When she looked back up at her, her smile was back in place. “Hey, what can I get you?”

She was floored for a moment, realising that she had forgotten to assess the menu in her reconnaissance. She looked desperately around, but all there was, was a blackboard above the woman’s head with curved writing listing the types of coffee beans they used, and nothing else. “I-I don’t know.” She said finally, taking a step back. _This was a mistake_. She turned, heading towards the exit.

“Hey! Wait!” the girl called after her, and she turned instinctively. The girl looked a little sympathetic, and beckoned her back over. She went reluctantly, knowing it would look far more strange if she simply ran out of the café without explanation. She stopped back in front of the counter, strangely hot in the cheeks. _Embarrassment. _ That was the feeling. She didn’t like feeling out of her depth. “First time at a place like this?” the woman said, with a faint air of camaraderie. “Don’t worry, I think this pretentious coffee house stuff is bullshit too. I don’t even like coffee.”

She blinked. “I’ve never had coffee.” She said, in response to the strange statement, unsure how to respond.

The woman perked up. “Never? Well – you’ve come to the right place to change that. Don’t get me wrong, for all my hatred, this place is probably the only café in DC you’ll get _actual_ coffee. At least, that’s what I’m told.” She shook her head slightly, frowning a little. The girl spoke very quickly, with a strong accent she could place as being from one of the New York boroughs. She wondered what she was doing in DC. Apparently noting her confusion, the girl smiled, tilting her head a little. “You’re not from around here, are you?” Panic bloomed suddenly in her chest, and she swallowed, denial on the tip of her tongue, but the girl was already speaking again. “You’ve got a bit of an accent – you Russian? My grandma is Russian, and she don’t speak a _lick_ of English. My mom sounded like you though. That’s cool. You just visiting DC?”

She had noted the past tense in reference to her mother, and also her quick pick up on her accent. This young woman was smart, or at least very observant. And she was also waiting for a response. She nodded slowly. “Yes. I am… visiting. Travelling.” She elaborated.

The girl nodded, her smile more genuine than it had been at the start of their conversation. “That’s cool!” she said again, and grinned. “Well, I think I can get you started with some coffee. Will you put your tastebuds in my hands?” she asked dramatically, and all she could do was nod. “Alright! What’s your name? For the order.”

She floundered. _Her name_.

_Her name_.

She’d never had a name. She’d had a codename, a title – but even that hadn’t been hers. _Her name_.

“Are you alright?” The girl’s concerned voice broke through her spiralling descent into panic. “Is it hard to pronounce?” She nodded jerkily, trying to control the chill racing through her. The girl grinned, “How about a nickname?”

“I don’t…” she stopped. “I don’t have one.” She tried again.

The girl’s smile dropped a little, but recovered quickly. “Well, today you’re gonna be, um…” she cast her eyes around the café, eyes lingering on one of the potted plants on the shelving space. “Fern? Ivy? Lily?”

“Lily.” She repeated, a little bemused.

The girl’s eyes lit up. “Lily! Sweet! We match – kinda – my name’s Daisy.” She sighed a little, as she tapped something into her little register. “My dad was weird; he named my brother Hawthorne. Like the tree.” She sighed again, more fondly. “I’ll get started on your coffee. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Payment?” She questioned. Daisy shook her head, with a small smile.

“Don’t worry about it. If you like it, just come back and buy your next one. If not – why pay for something gross?” She nodded slowly. _Kindness._ It went hand in hand with sentiment. Her heart panged with a faraway emotion.

It didn’t take Daisy long to make the coffee, and she slid it towards her with a faint look of anticipation. She picked it up, noting the temperature, and blew hesitantly on the light brown liquid, waiting a moment to take a sip. It was sweet, creamy, but not overwhelming like the Snickers – notes of an underlying bitterness and a slight ambiguous flavour that undercut the sugar. It _did_ have similar flavours of the Snickers however, and she took another sip, trying to figure out what it was. She liked the froth on the top of the drink, and licked at it. “It’s… good.” She said, taking a deeper drink, ignoring the burn in her mouth and throat.

Daisy grinned. “Cool! It’s a salted caramel latte.”

“Thank you.” She said carefully, taking the proffered lid and putting it on the cardboard cup. She did like it, as a whole, and was filled with a feeling of warm pleasure. The feeling of discovering something she genuinely liked was as satisfying now as it was when she’d first tried those damn Cheetos, when she watched the little hands of a watch go ticking round and round.

It was occurring to her, more prevalent with every passing day, that to go back – back to the life she had come from – would break her. She didn’t think she could go back.

“No worries, Lily.” Daisy smiled at her again. The door jangled behind them, and she took a step back as Daisy turned her fake smile onto the man who had just walked in. “Hi, welcome to The Orchid Garden, what can I getcha?”

She slipped out the door again, opening it slowly enough to avoid the loud chime of the bell, and found herself back out in the cold weather. She clutched a little tighter at the warm beverage in her grip. “Lily.” She murmured into the frosty air, trying it out herself. It felt strange, a little misshapen, and she closed her mouth. Her breath didn’t fog the way the others walking around her did, and she frowned a little. The record shop wasn’t far, but she took her time, making sure she finished her drink, and trying to ease the slight feeling of anticipation she had felt at the prospect of quite literally _facing the music._

The record store in comparison to the café, was quiet, dark; muted music playing in the background, the man behind the counter flicking through a magazine. He looked up when she walked in, giving her a small smile. “Hi.” She nodded to him, lingering a little awkwardly in the doorway. His brow creased a little. “Uh, can I help you with something?”

“A song.” She said immediately, short and clipped.

“Yes?” he shook his head a little, bemused. “What song?”

She clenched her jaw for a moment, frustrated. Clearly, she didn’t _know_ what song, that was why she was asking him. “_Strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words…Killing me softly with his song_.” She sung quickly, just as she remembered from the short snippet she’d caught before she left. As she sung it – word for word, note for note – her head ached suddenly.

He smiled. “Oh! Roberta Flack, Killing Me Softly. That’s a classic.” He turned, oblivious to the sudden turmoil exploding through her skull.

She had the oddest sensation of a déjà vu, pained and sharp. _She was missing something, she was missing something, she was missing-_

“Here!” He was in front of her again, too suddenly, and she reacted automatically, one hand flying out to grip him by the throat, other hand bringing up her gun to his temple. “Whoa! Oh, fuck, shit – please-”

She shuddered, letting him go, and snatching the CD from him. They stood for a moment in perfect silence. His eyes went to the counter, to the phone sitting there. She took a step back towards the door, reaching for her pocket again, and he panicked. He sprung to the counter, for his phone, but she was faster, throwing a crumpled twenty dollar bill at him, and was out the door before his face had finished registering his surprise.

She ran, flickering out of sight in between one passer-by and the other, tucking her gun into her waistband as she went, the CD secure under her arm. She didn’t have a CD player, how was she supposed to listen to it? What if-


	15. Washington D.C., 2014

**January 28th, 2014**

**Washington D.C.**

* * *

_A woman, curled around her mission, both of them bleeding._

_A gunshot, and her own fear coursing through her because – **Natalia. She wasn’t supposed to be there. She’d left Natalia in Russia, far away from here **– killing me softly with his song._

She blinked, skidding to a halt right before the busy intersection she had been about to run right into. What was wrong with her? That woman, Natalia-

_The world seemed to be moving quickly; the cars were different, faster. America was dizzying and bright, and nothing like her tiny room. America was bursting with noise. The 1970s were rife with change_._ The diner she had entered, taken solace was playing music. Her partner was faraway. She needed him – **She wanted him back. This was hurting them both **– she wanted the music and noise to stop for one damn moment because her head was hurting again, and yet the woman didn’t stop singing; all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd-_

Her head was splitting; memories converging and returning at a dizzying pace. She realised dimly she was crouched in an alley she didn’t recognise, had no idea how she’d ended up there. She pressed her forehead back into the filthy brick she was leaning against, tried to supress the scream rising in her throat-

_A woman. A woman with a long head of brilliantly red curls, a stunningly symmetrical face, and brilliant green eyes._ _Natalia would be about twenty-six now. She would be twenty-six, and she should have been in Russia with the KGB, or perhaps in America, undercover. **No, she was older than that now, she had been older than that on the bridge**. She should not have been here in Odessa. Not on a mission. Not driving a Hydra target across the border. Not directly involved in the mission. She should have never seen Natalia again. **Who was Natalia? She knew Natalia. Natalia was hers somehow, but how did she know that-**_

“Natalia.” She croaked. The red-haired woman from the bridge, the red-haired woman she should have put down, the red-haired woman she _couldn’t kill._ Had never been able to kill, if this strange phantom memory was to be believed. She hadn’t killed her in Odessa, hadn’t killed her in Washington. She had been a young girl, skinny and doe-eyed and ferocious. That was Natalia too. She struggled for a moment to align the three contrasting versions of the woman. Of this Natasha, Natalia, her малютка. Her little one.

Her head still hurt, but with her reluctant acceptance that the woman – _Natalia – _had existed in her life for years now, that she had, at some point, _cared_ for the child – the woman, _Natalia –_ the pain eased somewhat.

The hard edges of the CD case bit into her palm, and she loosened her tight grip on the object. _All that from a song…_

All it did was make her wonder – make her confused. Because what else was trapped? What other memories had been shut up, waiting to be unlocked?

_Would Natalia know?_

She shut down that line of thought immediately.

That would be idiotic – to attempt to seek out Natalia was a fool’s errand. The woman owed her nothing – the last time they had been face to face; she had put a knife through her. In fact, she wasn’t even sure Natalia was _alive_. The thought made her a little sick, and she stood unsteadily.

She had to return to the safehouse.

* * *

He wasn’t there when she returned.

It wasn’t enough to worry her – at least, not for the first few hours – but when the sun had set, and she’d finished her meal, and there was still no sign of him, she warily began to get dressed. She had just re-holstered her gun, running through the possible places he may have gone to hide, whether or not she was compromised too, when the door opened.

She had the gun raised and pointed at him, safety off before her partner had even stepped over the threshold.

He didn’t flinch, just closed the door behind him, and dead-bolted it, casting a look through the peephole before re-plastering the tape they’d put over it. She frowned, and lowered the gun. “Were you followed?” she asked.

He was frowning too, discarding his cap on his way to draw the curtains a little tighter. “I don’t think so.” At least she knew why he had been late. “I thought I might have been, but even if I was, I lost them on the way here.”

“Good.” She said and put down the gun. She trusted him. He turned to look at her, and she met his gaze a little curiously. He looked torn, almost indecisive. “Что это такое?” **_What is it?_** She asked him.

His mouth twisted. “I visited the exhibit again.” he told her. He wasn’t a coward, he wasn’t afraid of speaking once he’d made up his mind; and though he may have been uncomfortable, he held her eye contact. She waited, knowing he was categorizing his thoughts, getting himself in order, working out what he wanted to say. “And I – I remembered some things.” He smiled slightly, the corner of his mouth coming up self-deprecatingly. “Well. _More_ things. Like, his name. My name. Do you want to know?” it was a serious question, and she felt the deep connotations of it for them _both_.

Because it was out in the open now; they both knew now – that he had another life. He wasn’t who he had thought, who he had been to her. He was no longer hers and hers alone. She had been trying not to think about the implications of his memory returning.

But how could she deny him his life?

_That man had cared about him, enough to look at him with so much love, enough to hold his punches even when the world was ending, enough to call his name and try to save him._

Her partner had someone now. A _real_ someone. Not a monster, not a partner he was shackled to, not the only person he had been forced onto for years, not just the other prisoner in the cell that had been his life.

“Yes.” She said. Resolute. If he still trusted her, even with this new knowledge, then she would honour it. He wanted to tell her, therefore, she wanted to listen – even if it might mean that he would leave.

He fished out the little book, and opened it to the first page. He began to read. “James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes. Born in 1916, Barnes grew up the eldest child of four. An excellent athlete who also excelled in the classroom, Barnes enlisted in the Army shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbour. After winter training at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, Barnes and the rest of the 107th shipped out to the Italian front. Captured by Hydra troops,” His voice wavered for a moment, breaking the monotone he had been reading what she suspected was the description at the museum in. She held her breath. _Captured by Hydra._ So, they had had him earlier than she had known. He cleared his throat, and tried again. “Captured by Hydra troops later that fall, Barnes experienced long periods of isolation, deprivation and torture. But his will was strong. In an ironic twist of fate, his prison camp was liberated by none other than his childhood friend, Steve Rogers, now Captain America. Reunited, Barnes and Rogers led Captain America’s newly formed unit, The Howling Commandos. Barnes’ marksmanship was invaluable as Rogers and his team destroyed Hydra bases and disrupted Nazi troop movements throughout the European theatre.”

He paused for a long moment before he began to read, and this time his cadence was uncertain, a little warmer and she knew instinctively that this was _him._ “Barnes and Rogers had been more than childhood friends. Best friends. Brothers. Barnes attended art classes because Steve had convinced him, even though he was terrible at art. Barnes had helped pay for Roger’s mother’s funeral. Barnes and Rogers lived together for some time. Barnes’ mother had dark hair. Barnes’ sister was pretty. Barnes was popular, and Barnes liked to dance. Rogers didn’t.” His voice got quiet. “Barnes’ first encounter with Hydra was worse than his second. The fall hurt more than losing an arm.” He closed the book. “That’s all so far.” He said, sounding tired.

“Okay.” She said.

_Did he remember the things that Hydra took from him, after he had lost his friend, his arm, his old life? All the blood, the death, the missions? _She didn’t want to ask him. Didn’t think she should. Not yet, anyway.

“What did you do today?” he asked, clearly looking for a distraction.

_James Buchanan Barnes._

She looked at him, feeling a little disorientated herself. “I had coffee. Met a girl with yellow hair. Bought a CD.” She didn’t mention pulling a gun on the man, didn’t mention being given a name, didn’t mention her breakdown in the alleyway, her revelation about Natalia.

“Can I see it?” he asked, putting the book on the nightstand, right next to where he slept. She wondered if he would write in it again tonight. She nodded, and stood to go collect the little square container. He held it reverently, metal fingers tracing the image of the woman on the front, the piano. “Why this one?” he looked back at her, eyes curious.

It was on the tip of her tongue. She bit back the words she wanted to tell him, and shrugged instead. “First one I saw.” She lied instead, moving around the bed to climb onto her side. She turned away from him, and switched off her lamp pointedly.

“Good night.” He said softly, turning off his own light.

She bit her lip. _Was James Buchanan Barnes the kind of man that always bid people goodnight? Was he the kind of man that would stay?_


	16. Washington D.C., 2014

**February 2nd, 2014**

**Washington D.C.**

* * *

“How’s that one?”

Daisy hung eagerly over the counter, searching her face as she sipped on the tea that Daisy had set in front of her with a loud ‘_try this and compliment me!’_

“It’s nice. Solid.” She smacked her lips together. She still thought she preferred coffee, but she could appreciate Daisy’s multitude of teas. The girl may have had a hatred for coffee, but she was just as passionate in her adoration of tea. This particular Oolong tea was bolder in flavour than the others she had sampled, and Daisy had added her own delicate mix of jasmine and lemon to the leaves. “Very nice.” She supplemented her compliment.

The Friday afternoon had dawned weakly; the sky dark and thunderous, near blackened by the ominous rainclouds that were still holding heavy over the city. The threat of a winter rainstorm seemed to have fended off the usual clientele, which had meant that usually already quiet café was empty, apart from Daisy, the occasional harried customer taking away their drink, and herself, sitting at the table closest to the counter.

Daisy trilled, a happy little note, and danced around in a circle. The music was quieter today. Daisy had quickly picked up on her aversion to the volume, and the actual quality of the music, and when she had shown off her Roberta Flack CD to the bright barista, Daisy had quickly switched the music to more musical fodder from the 60’s and 70’s. “Do you think it’s good enough to sell? I want to start a tea menu, attract the other half of hipsters. Y’know, the ones who practice Buddhism, drink expensive tea and do goat yoga.” She didn’t know, but she nodded at Daisy’s statement anyway. “I just don’t know how to price it.”

“I think you will work it out and sell the tea at hipster-appropriate prices.” She said seriously. Daisy laughed, as she sometimes did when she expressed some statements.

“You’re so funny, Lily.” Daisy told her, quickly distracted by a ding from the oven. “Oh! Cookies are up! We may as well eat the ugly ones, there’s no customers.” She pulled out the tray, hurriedly wrapping a towel around her hand to pull it out. She winced dropping it with a clatter on the counter. “Hot!” she whined, unwrapping her hand to stare at her apparent injury. She opened her mouth to tell Daisy that the tray had just come from the oven; hence the dangerous temperature – when the bell sounded at the door. She turned as Daisy straightened with a smile – and felt her heart stutter to a halt.

The four men filtering into the café registered immediately as threats. Her eyes went to the black combat uniforms under loose fitting sweatshirts, the faint line of gun holsters at their waists, their alert stances, their broad forms. These men were soldiers, they were spies, and there was only one reason why they would be in this café armed the way they were.

She was already on her feet by the time the first man’s eyes fell upon her.

“Hi, welcome to The Orchid- FUCK!” Daisy screamed as the first man pulled out his gun and fired at her, but she was already phased, and the bullet went through her, shattering a row of mugs with a loud crash. Daisy cried out again as the shards went flying and dropped out of sight behind the counter.

She gritted her teeth and disappeared. The men cursed, heads doing the usual crazy spin and turn, looking for something they couldn’t see. _They couldn’t see her, couldn’t see the end coming_.

She leapt at the first man, wrenching his own gun from his grip and driving her knee into his stomach and as he crumpled, firing one shot right through his forehead. She was already moving as two of the others opened fire on the spot where she had been, but she realised with a bolt of panic, that the bullets were flying into the counter that Daisy was sheltering behind. She flashed into being, drawing their attention and then out of being again, letting the bullets go harmlessly through her and into the display of plants.

Then, the fourth man pulled out a small device, and aimed it at her.

Electricity went buzzing up her spine, and she dropped involuntarily to the floor, momentarily immobilised.

_So, they were Hydra then._

She gritted her teeth. They may have been Hydra, but they clearly knew nothing about her, because they had lowered their weapons and were stepping towards her, clearly confident in the low-level voltage to keep her subdued. If they knew how to handle her, they would have immobilized her, not simply prevented her from phasing. Her grimace slowly turned into a savage kind of smile, because these men had underestimated her, and _she_ _was not going back._

She was upon them before they could process her movement, sweeping the legs out from the nearest of them, and rolling over his form to straighten right into the face of the next man, slamming her forehead into his nose, and kicking her body up into a complicated flip that caught the third man with all the force of her somersaulting body, her foot catching him around the head. He was sent to the floor, out cold, and she turned her attention on the man rising to his feet and the one clutching his bleeding nose.

She darted between them as the bloody nosed man raised his gun, dropping into another front roll towards him as he fired, and the grunt of the other man told her that the bullet had found a different home. He dropped heavily to the ground behind her – but she had no time to assess his state – already exchanging blows with the other man. He was far more interested in getting his gun aimed at her than truly defending himself, and it was far too easy to land two debilitating jabs to his throat as she held his hand holding his gun away from herself. He released the gun involuntarily at the burst of pain and loss of breath, and she grabbed it with her other hand as it fell, keeping her grip on her wrist, spinning into his body until her back was against his chest and firing one precise shot at the third man she had downed earlier, catching him where he was raising his own gun.

He dropped, and she spun out again, wrenching his wrist painfully and using her considerable strength to drop him to his knees. He whimpered when she raised the gun to his temple, but she didn’t falter. This man would have killed her, or taken her back, which would have killed her too.

“N-no! Don’t!” Daisy’s sudden cry made her turn. The young woman was crying, hands fluttering from her throat to her sides, terrified. “P-please. Don’t…”

“He’s a bad man, Daisy.” She explained patiently, wrenching his arm back further as he struggled slightly, and ignoring his faint cry.

“It doesn’t mean you should kill him.” She hiccupped a sob. “Not here. Please. Lily.” It was the _stupid_ name that did her in. She ground her teeth, looking back down at the man shaking beneath her, and drew the gun away from his temple. She swung at him savagely and Daisy gave a little screech, the man crumpling unconscious to the ground. She begun her methodical examination of the men, removing the other weaponry they had upon them, collecting their identification, picking up the small remote device – and crushed it – the metal giving way under her furious force.

“Who are you?” Daisy’s voice was a terrified whisper.

She paused, straightening from her crouch over the body of the first man. She could practically taste the young woman’s fear, could picture her horrified look, the fearful disgust that would follow. She stared unseeingly out of the window. “Nobody.” She said finally.

“Don’t _lie_ to me!” Daisy’s voice got suddenly furious. “You’ve just dropped four men and put blood _all_ over my café, and you did it like you were some kind of highly trained _superhero_, and now my mugs are ruined, and I’m going to have to call the police-” She turned to look at the woman, effectively stopping her in the middle of her growing tirade. Daisy’s eyes grew very wide, and she gulped visibly. “W-wait… you’re-”

“Дух.”

She whirled, meeting her partner’s gaze where he stood in the shattered glass where the door had once been. “Кто они?” **_Who were they?_** He asked her, stalking towards the back of the café, towards the door marked ‘STAFF,’ Daisy squeaking in fear as he moved past her. He stuck his head through the door, doing a quick scan of the backroom, before he turned back to her.

“Hydra.” She told them. “Должно быть, они следовали за мной здесь. Я не поняла.” **_They must have followed me here. I didn't realise. _**She said frustratedly. _Stupid._ She had let her guard down.

He shook his head, and gave her an apologetic look. “Они следовали за мной. Я собирался увидеть тебя; извиняюсь.” **_They were following me. I was coming to see you; sorry._** He nodded towards the street. “Я позаботился о других снаружи.” **_I took care of the others outside._**

“Ты Зимний Солдат, и ты Дух.” **_You’re the Winter Soldier, and you’re Ghost._** Daisy’s Russian was rough and accented, but it made them both turn to her, her partner looking at Daisy as if he had just noticed her. “You’re all over the news. And I didn’t realise…” she made a faintly panicked sound, “I’ve been calling you _Lily._ I made you drink _tea. _You were my _friend._” She swayed in place. “Oh my god.”

“I would never have hurt you.” She said honestly, guilt flooding her stomach. She felt ill. “You were my friend too. My first friend.”

Daisy just closed her eyes. “Oh my god.” She said again.

“Мы должны идти.” **_We have to go._** Her partner sounded remote, and when she looked at him, he was staring out of the café windows, eyes faraway, and she caught the edge of sirens in the distance. _He was right._

She looked back at Daisy regretfully. “I’m sorry, Daisy. Thank you for being kind.” Outside, thunder rolled, and the sky opened.

“Давай.” **_Come on._** Her partner said, more insistently, feet crunching on the glass as he moved towards the exit. She gave Daisy one last look, but the woman had her head down, staring at the blood spreading across her floor. Biting down hard on her tongue, she slipped into the Grey, grabbing her partner’s arm – and they disappeared into the storm.

* * *

“She called you Lily.”

They were crammed together in the cargo hold of the first ship they had found leaving America. They weren’t sure where they would end up, but it was the safest way to get out of the country. It stunk; like old fish, salt and the sweat of the laborers that had loaded the cargo. The space they had found to hole up was barely big enough for the two of them, and they were pressed together in the small space, her practically in his lap, his head hunched to fit under the container.

She looked at his face, still able to map out his features in the dark. He looked faintly accusing, a little hurt.

“She did.” She replied, and watched him frown.

“You never said she was your friend.”

She bristled slightly, unsure why, but angry all the same. “Are you going to tell me it was a security risk? Because I was well aware of that.”

He drew himself up a little, head hitting the crate above them with a dull thud. “No.” He sounded different. She couldn’t put her finger on the emotion in his voice and it bothered her even more. “I just- thought you would tell me things.” _Like I tell you._ It hung in the air between them.

She didn’t address it. “Are you regretting leaving?” she asked instead. She had to know.

“What?” He frowned again.

“Are you regretting leaving _him?_” she elaborated.

He was silent for a while. “Is that what you think?”

“I’m asking you.”

She felt him shift, his fingers brushing her shoulder. “There was never an option of staying.” He said quietly. “Even if- even if he does want me, I can’t…” he struggled, closing his mouth angrily. “I’m not the man he knew. I’m not Bucky.”

“But if he did want you. If you _were_ Bucky.” Her heart was beating so loudly they could both hear it without trying. “Would you stay?”

This time when his fingers touched her, it was deliberate. She felt his metal fingertips run the length of her throat, his eyes hard as they stared at her. “I could never leave you. I thought I made that very clear. I don’t – I don’t know who I am. But I know that I am less without you.”

“If you had wanted to stay, I would have stayed with you.” She admitted quietly, something easing inside her, a warmth she didn’t realise she was without, flooding her chest.

“I know. And if you had wanted to go, I would have gone.” He told her.

She reached up to grip his metal hand where it was resting on the junction of her neck and shoulder. She wound her fingers around his. “Мы в безопасности.”

“Мы в безопасности.” He echoed.

** _We’re secure._ **

They were.

She took a breath, and looked up at him. “She called me Lily because she thought I needed a nickname. After I first met her, I went back to a music store. I went there again, because the first time I went, a song made me run away.” She paused, smiling bitterly. “I went, and I bought that song. I didn’t even have to play it…” her hand went involuntarily to her temple, remembering the splitting pain. “It just… I remembered her. My малютка. Natalia. Natasha. They took her from me, took the memories of her before we came to America.” He nodded, patient. “The first time I met her, she was eight years old, and I already knew she would grow to be the best of them. She was a trainee at the Red Room Academy. You first met her when she was eleven.”

“I don’t remember her.” He said, a little confused. “Only from the bridge.”

“There’s a lot you don’t remember.” She said a little sadly. He searched her gaze for a moment, and she sighed. “Do you want to know?”

“Yes.”

And so, she told him.

The long days of their journey were filled with the worst parts of their shared history. The best parts of their newly recovered memories were things that belonged to _them_ individually. The bloody, brutal years that were _theirs_ were far too many. It outweighed the little spots of brightness that may have existed. But she held nothing back. Censoring the parts he couldn’t remember made no sense; the bits he did remember were just as violent as the missions he didn’t.

She spoke until she grew hoarse, and when she began to tell him about New Mexico, about his first defection, he took over for her, and he told her how fractured he had felt, how his mind had been falling apart, how badly he had hurt, how he had craved a life he hadn’t recognized, how half of him was pulling away, how half of him was dragging him back to her, back to Hydra.

There was one conjoined gap in their memory however, a stretch of time she couldn’t account for, that he couldn’t remember either and they grew quiet at the realisation.

“It must have been something bad.” She whispered eventually. Bad, as in, somehow worse than all the other atrocities they had committed. Bad, as in, even Hydra had thought it was too much for them to remember. He nodded, troubled.

“Some of the things you said,” he hesitated. “I can’t remember still. I mean, I can’t remember them myself.”

She could empathise. There had been some missions when she had been so far under, so fully _Ghost,_ that it felt as though she was watching from afar, where things had faded from her recollection so quickly that it had seemed to never have happened. Those were the missions she had only gotten back later, in the long stretches of time between one mission and the next. “You’ll remember.” She told him, promised him.

He nodded again, and they lapsed back into silence.

Talking about it, reliving it aloud, the years, the countless lives, the red soaking her ledger – it was making her spiral a little, cold creeping over her skin.

_She hated herself._

She swallowed around the sudden mouthful of bile.

_She disgusted herself._

It was a thing that had long gone unaddressed. Thinking about it, about the absolute lows she had felt in the time between each mission, she realised just how true it had been _for so long_. She had always known she was subhuman.

Now she knew she was a monster too.


	17. Kavala, Greece, 2014

**February 7th, 2014**

**Kavala, Greece**

* * *

They ended up in Kavala, one of the most northern port cities in Greece. It was almost as cold as the days they had left behind in America; the differences being the constant sunshine, and the softer breezes off the Mediterranean Sea.

It was far too easy to slip off the boat, to blend in with the crowds on the port, looking more like the working class than tourists – working in their favour as it appeared to be the off season – and they disappeared into the town with nary a second look.

The town itself was comprised of a winding and rising series of cobbled streets and red-tiled houses, looking out into the bay, and large flat modern roads, over which, a large and obviously ancient aqueduct arched over everything. They headed towards Old Town instinctively, heading north into the city. It was still early, and it seemed the only bustle was on the docks, and as the sun continued to brighten the world, they disappeared into the antiquities of the older part of the city.

Neither of them spoke Greek, but it seemed to be most etymologically similar to Arminian, though the physical alphabet was completely different. Still, snatches of conversation, the occasional English word, a string of German – it was enough to ease her mind a little. Perhaps here, she would finally learn Greek.

If they chose to stay here.

After a few hours of wandering the streets, the world coming to life around them, they found a small house that promised a bed and breakfast for ‘low rates’. Her partner knocked on the door, and stood back to allow her to wait in front of the door. Smart. She appeared the lesser of the two physical threats they presented.

The door opened, revealing a tiny, ancient old woman. She blinked, caught by surprise by the sheer _age_ of the woman. She was staring at them without seeing, and she took in the milky white cataracts over the woman’s eyes with interest. She was blind.

“Hello.” She tried, uncertainly.

The woman’s head twitched up towards her. “Foreigner.” She said, in a whispery voice. “Говориш ли български?” **_You speak Bulgarian?_**

A flood of relief. “Да. Нашите извинения.” **_Yes. Our apologies._**

The woman reached for her, and she stilled as her hands made contact with her torso, brushing over her shoulder and reaching for her face. She bent accordingly, letting the little crone run her fingers over her face. “Колко сте?” **_How many are you?_** She demanded.

“Само две. Нямаме пари - но сме готови да работим за борда.” **_Just two. We have no money - but we are willing to work for board._** She was hoping the woman would comply. She was tired, and her muscles were still aching from being cramped for so long.

The woman grunted, and turned around with a wince, hobbling back into the house. “Глоба. И без това имам нужда от допълнителен чифт ръце тук. Ще трябва да споделите резервната стая.” **_Fine. I need an extra pair of hands around here anyway. You'll have to share the spare room._**

“това е повече от достатъчно.” **_That’s more than enough._** He spoke for the first time, a little hesitantly.

The woman seemed to perk up. “Вашият съпруг?” **_Your partner?_** She didn’t answer for a moment; because the actual translation of the woman’s word flustered her inexplicably. Partner; husband, spouse-

“Да, ние сме на меден месец.” **_Yes, we’re on our honeymoon. _**He took over smoothly, confidently enough that she looked at him in surprise. His flesh hand came to settle on her shoulder just as the woman reached out again, her own wrinkled fingers landing on the jointure of them.

She beamed happily. “Хубаво е да чуете за любовта. От много години съм без съпруга си.” **_It is good to hear of love. I have been without my husband for many years now. _**Her face reflected little sorrow, mostly a faint reminiscent peace.

“Съжалявам.” **_I’m sorry._** She apologized, unsure if it was the right thing to do.

The woman waved her hands dismissively. “Разделихме се, знаейки, че ще се видим отново.” **_We parted knowing we would see each other again. _**She turned, heading into the house. “Ела ела. Ще направя закуска.” **_Come, come. I will make breakfast._**

Her partner’s hand on her shoulder felt heavy in a way it hadn’t before, and she shrugged him off a little disconcertedly as they entered. She could feel his eyes on the back of her neck, and avoided his eyes in favour of canvassing the small cottage style home they were wandering into. It had low, hand hewn beams supporting the ceiling, and she could already tell that her partner would need to watch his head. The walls were white painted brick, made cheerful by several paintings and hand-stitched embroidered hangings, fresh flowers in old crystal vases on every free surface. The kitchen was connected to the dining room, a small sofa next to a bookcase made up the living room – and through the open kitchen door, the scent of orange blossom wafted in along with birdsong, the now blue sky smiling through the open window.

The door in the living room showed a short corridor and as the woman pulled out a covered bowl of eggs and a vine of bright tomatoes, she headed silently down the corridor. In the main bedroom, the woman’s bed was already made, a pillbox on her bedside table, and on the opposite side of the bed, a pair of men’s glasses and an old newspaper still rested; dust-free, but unmoved. A picture of the woman – younger, unlined, beautiful in a white wedding dress – and her dead husband was framed on the wall, yellowed by sun exposure and age. She ran her fingers over the glass of the frame, tracing the face of the man their host had loved for so long. They looked happy, and carefree.

The room over was just as clean, fresh towels folded on the blue quilted bed, a window framed by yellow curtains, and a god-awful painting of a kitten in a bonnet. Though, she found some comfort in her aversion to it. It felt good to like or dislike things.

The scent of frying food was beginning to waft down the hall, along with the faint voices of her partner and the woman. She stayed still for a moment longer, mentally plotting the easiest escape room from their mostly shut off room. The garden – like the majority of properties – was walled in by high, bricked fences, and though it would be no issue for her and her partner, it provided the potential for ambush.

They would have to be careful here, fight to stay alert through the tranquil atmosphere that was settled heavily over the sleepy town.

* * *

They ate with the woman, and she regaled them with tales of her youth, telling them of her children, and her children’s children – her pride, her joy, far away in England – her husband’s Bulgarian roots. He’d settled down here, for her, she said. His love for her had been greater than his love for his country.

She washed the dishes after that, the woman – Callistrati – retiring to the couch, and pulling out a half-finished embroidered pillow. How she knew what colour thread she was using was beyond her, and it was fascinating to watch the elderly woman carefully and deftly stitch blind. Her partner was in the garden, beginning his work on the garden bed Callistrati had told him to start.

It was hot in the sun, and she could see sweat beginning to bead on his face and neck, dampening the shirt he was wearing. He straightened as she finished the last plate, shaking her hands free of the suds, and they made eye contact through the window. His hair was past his shoulders now, facial hair heading towards beard territory, and she turned from him as he pushed his hair out of his face impatiently.

“Имате ли самобръсначка?” **_Do you have a razor? _**She asked Callistrati, stepping with loud footsteps towards the woman so not to frighten her.

Callistrati nodded. “Да, аз го правя - макар че ще е необходимо заточване.” **_Yes, I do - though it will need sharpening._** She smiled, and gestured to the other rooms. “В банята, в лявото чекмедже.” **_In the bathroom, in the left drawer._**

“Благодаря ти.” **_Thank you_**.

* * *

The woman went to bed early, leaving them alone and awake in the unlit house. It only occurred to her afterwards that perhaps they should have asked their host to turn the lights on – if only to maintain pretence – it made no difference to Callistrati in her blindness, and they both saw quite well in darkness, but an average civilian should have struggled.

Her partner had just returned from the bathroom, metal arm still faintly steaming and beaded with water droplets. She looked up from the gun she was cleaning in her lap, and patted the bed with her foot. “Sit.” She told him.

He raised his eyebrows, roughly towelling his hair dry. “Why?” In the lowlight from their still uncovered window, he was thrown into sharper relief than usual, shadows in the ridges of his body more pronounced. His collarbones, his chest, his cheekbones and torso cut and chiselled from moonlight and shadow, eyes more silver than ever. She watched him without response for a moment longer.

He’d lost weight again; they both had. Without proper nutrition, they both wasted away, but it was always more obvious on her partner – she’d always looked too thin, too angular – and she made a note to make sure he had regained his strength before they moved on. “What?” he asked now, almost self-consciously, as he tugged on a clean shirt.

She shook her head. “You need to shave.” She told him. “Ты выглядишь как бродяга.”**_ You look like a vagrant._** He smiled faintly, amusement in his eyes, and acquiesced, settling where she had indicated. She reached over to the nightstand, and pulled the bowl of shaving cream and the freshly sharpened straight razor towards herself.

He looked at the items with interest. “You know how to handle it?” he asked. At her irritated look, he chuckled. “Forget I asked.”

“That’s right.” She told him a little snootily, coming around to stand above him with the bowl in one hand. It was an awkward position, and as she slathered on the cream, she realised she would struggle to properly reach to contours of his face, and frowned a little. She leant into him instead, putting the bowl down and lifting his chin with one finger. His eyes had gone wide, and she raised a brow. “Hold still.” She told him.

She moved closer still, keeping her hand steady as she gently sculpted down his out of control facial hair. She wouldn’t risk him clean shaven; the pictures of James Buchannan Barnes all showed a bare faced boy, and their best chance at remaining anonymous meant hiding themselves as best as they could. Her feet slid a little on the worn carpet as she leant on tip toes, and they moved together to steady her. His arm came around her torso, securing her as she brought a knee up onto the mattress to stabilize herself.

It pressed them close, chest to chest, hips aligned, hands on skin – her hand on his throat, keeping him still, him with his fingers on the small of her back where her borrowed singlet had ridden up – _too_ close in consciousness, closer than they’d been before whilst awake, without duress or necessity.

She matched his unblinking gaze. _It was just her partner._ She moved first, tilting his head back and lowering the blade to his skin again. His arm remained where it was, hot like a brand, steady.

They were silent after that, and after he left to wash off what remained of the shaving cream, she slipped a jacket on over her nightwear – and shifted into the Grey, phasing through the walls of the house and garden into the night beyond.

Reasoning the faint discomfort in her gut was due to their unsecured surroundings, she made sure she had thoroughly conducted a perimeter search before she returned.

Her partner was already under the covers, back turned to the window when she returned, and he didn’t stir when she lay atop the quilt. His breathing told her he was awake, and they both remained conscious till dawn.

Even with the sun’s return, the strange feeling lingered.


	18. Kavala, Greece, 2014

**February 28th, 2014**

**Kavala, Greece**

* * *

Her heartbeat was loud and heavy in her ears, chest tight from holding her breath, and though her vision was blurred – she thought she might never leave the water.

It was cool and quiet under the waves, bright and clear enough to make out the sandy bottom. Her partner had yet to brave the deep as she had – though they both knew how to swim – the open ocean unfamiliar to them both. The salt was getting a bit much for her eyes, and she pushed off the bottom, swimming for the surface. Her head popped above the waves easily, treading water as she looked for her partner.

The little inlet was far from the tourist infected beaches of the main coast, but the occasional local would happen upon them once in a while, and for that reason her partner was stuck in his long-sleeved shirt. He did have his feet in the water, sitting on the dampened sand with his legs outstretched into the gentle waves licking the shoreline. She paddled towards him until she could stand, walking through the water towards him, the shirt she had been swimming in clinging to her, as wet as her skin.

She stood, dripping on him a little, waiting for his detached gaze to fall upon her. He was looking past her, out to the horizon. The sky was clear, as it always seemed to be here, and there were no boats on the water, and it felt as though it was just them and the ocean. Eventually, his eyes slid to hers and she sat beside him instead, ignoring the faint irritation of sand sticking to her body, and waited for him to speak.

“We have to move on soon. Or at least find somewhere more permanent, more secure.” His voice was quiet, and she turned to look at him. He had been still and silent today, and she thought she saw more steel in his gaze than she had yesterday. Yesterday he had been warm and laughing, entertaining Callistrati in the living room; they’d pushed back the sofa to clear the floor and he’d let the woman lead him around the room in a miniature zorba.

Today he was stiffer, colder. Reminiscent of his attitude during Hydra.

She searched his face for another moment, before the wind blew his hair into his eyes. He made no move to disentangle it, and so she did it for him, gathering the strands in her hand, gently brushing it off his face. She took the small hairband she’d fashioned for him off his limp wrist and tied it away in a small bun at the nape of his neck, though despite her efforts, a few strands slipped from its grip to fall around his face.

“Okay.” She said simply.

He looked at her then, blinking hard. When his eyes finally found hers, she thought they didn’t look so hard anymore; less like stone, more like thunderclouds. “Okay.” He sounded a little relieved. He shook his head once. “Sorry, I- it can’t be safe.” It was like he was trying to justify it, and she didn’t like it.

“I understand. Whatever you like.”

He hummed, shoulders relieving a little of their tension. “What I like…” he mused. She lent into him slightly, pleased.

“I like lots of things.” She said, aware she sounded a little juvenile, but unable to hide her giddiness at the feeling of it all.

He looked at her again, eyes even softer, a smile pulling at his lips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She mimicked. “Maybe too many things. Maybe too much. It’s a little overwhelming, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Sometimes. But that’s what people do; like things, all things, no things, some things. We can choose.” He smiled again, a different smile, reminiscent, and she knew that the little book of memories that he wrote in was going to be added to when they arrived back at the room. “I remembered that I like the beach.”

“Tell me.” She brought her knees up, brushing the sand from her shins, waiting expectantly. She liked hearing his remembering. Perhaps it was a mark of her own comfort, the odd shift, the acknowledgement between them that he wouldn’t leave her.

“Hmmm… it was hot, but it was always hot during summer, even indoors – so me and,” here he stopped for a moment, swallowed, “Steve, we decided that we might as well be hot somewhere hot. I skipped my… work. I think.” She nudged him to continue, and he shook his head a little. “He skipped his art class – Jesus, don’t know how I convinced him, he loved his paintin’ and all of that arty stuff,” His accent had thickened, a gleam to his eyes that was fond and unfamiliar but still her partner all at once. “We went to Coney Island, the beach there – didn’t have enough for the rides. It was nice…” he trailed off. All of it was unfamiliar to her, but she liked the way he sounded when he talked about it. “Not as clear as this water, the sand was coarser, but I remember throwin’ Stevie in – had to go get him afterwards. That’s how I found out he hadn’t been swimming before that.”

_Stevie._

She mulled it over, adding the story to her own collection. If he ever forgot again, she would have them too.

“That’s how they taught me to swim, too.” She said, “Threw me in and left the room.” He looked at her, and she tried to smile reassuringly. She liked sharing stories too. “I learnt quickly!”

He didn’t look as amused as she had hoped, touching her cheek briefly instead of smiling, and asked; “How old were you?”

She wasn’t sure why the mood had changed, but answered anyway. “I don’t know…” she raised a hand off the ground, trying to estimate her height at the time. She had only been halfway as tall as she was currently. His mouth tightened, and he took her raised hand in his metal one, and squeezed it lightly, as if reassuring her. “What?” she asked.

He shook his head. “It’s… nothing. We should head back.”

He stood, and she almost apologized, because it was clear she had done something wrong. She went quietly, catching up to him on the pier, slipping on the shoes they’d hidden under the worn wood, and he led the way back to Callistrati’s house, all without saying a word.

It made discomfort twist her gut, and she lay awake that night in silence.

* * *

**March 24th, 2014**

**Istanbul, Turkey**

* * *

Callistrati had been sad to see them go, and she couldn’t deny the tendrils of longing that stretched behind her as they headed East. Her partner was right though, it was well past their time to move on and as they had crossed the border into Turkey, there had been a narrow miss with border security.

But Turkey was a good place to lie low. The city was constantly moving, no-one’s eyes lingering long enough to become suspicious, and it was cheap – easy to eat and sleep. There were always odd jobs to do for spare coin, and she and her partner had been to Istanbul before. The familiarity of it made them both feel a little less exposed.

Yesterday, they’d finally secured lodgings, settling in a local neighbourhood in one of the only tiny apartments left in a block painted blue and pink. They did have a safehouse here, but there was no sense returning to a place that might have been compromised. Lodgings meant that it was just the two of them again, and she couldn’t deny her inherent relief at the fact. Putting on a façade in front of the other tourists at the cheap hostel they’d been in for a week had been tiring, just as it had been exhausting pretending to be local at a share house they’d been in whilst waiting for the apartment to become available. Here, at least, she didn’t constantly have to hide her colouring and scars behind layers of fabric that didn’t make the heat any more bearable.

She was up before her partner today, and she eased up off the thin mat they were sharing soundlessly. He was sprawled out completely, half-off the mat and on the stone floor, though he hadn’t moved so she figured he must not have noticed. There were only two windows in the airless place, and whilst her partner would have preferred a view out on to the street, perhaps even to keep a rifle by the window, she kept the curtains drawn.

Today, however, she couldn’t see the harm in letting a little of the light in, and some of the night cool before it evaporated in the sunlight. The warmth felt good on her skin, and she stood for a long moment in the dawn light, looking without seeing at the roofs across the city, the spires of Hagia Sophia in the distance, the rusting mobile towers, the doves just beginning to rouse in the sky.

There were already people in the streets, labourers heading to work, even some businessmen in crisply ironed shirts, clutching chunky mobile phones and briefcases. Opposite her, a shuttered window was thrown open, and a woman, who did not look too much older than she physically did, appeared. She shook out a long white sheet, before pinning it to the small clothesline below her window.

When the woman looked up, she drew back instinctively. Her time in the sun was over. There were things to do now.

* * *

“Aşağı inemem.” **_I cannot go lower._** The small man in white shook his head emphatically, clutching at the bag of dates she was trying to score as if they were solid gold. “Beni soymaya çalışıyorsun!” **_You are trying to rob me!_**

She scoffed, rubbing her lira together pointedly. “Sonra başka bir yere gideceğim. Bu makul bir fiyat.” **_Then I'll go elsewhere. This is a reasonable price._** She pointed towards another sweet stall a few paces down in the Bazaar. “Daha iyi baklava satıyorlar, belki de randevularımı ve baklavayı bir kerede alırım.” **_They sell better baklava, maybe I'll get my dates and baklava all at once there._**

The man sighed, all an act, and at the small gleam in his eyes, she thought he must be enjoying the act of haggling just as much as she was. “Sen acımasız, zor bir kadınsın. İnce. Paranı alacağım.” **_You are a cruel, hard woman. Fine. I will take your money._** She handed him the notes, before her eyes fell on the crate of plums beside the rows of dried fruit. They were fresh and looked like jewels, still dewy from wherever they had been picked.

“Ben de dört tane erik alacağım.” **_I’ll take four plums too._** She told him, and fished out extra change. He nodded easily, his wrinkled hands deftly picking the largest four of the bunch, and she smiled as he handed her the new bag. “Teşekkür ederim.” **_Thank you._**

“İyi günler genç bayan.” **_Have a good day, young lady. _**He bowed his head to her, and she returned the gesture, turning to merge with the throng.

It didn’t take her long to procure some cheese and pide – Turkish flatbread with black sesame seeds on top she thought smelt good – and before she knew it, she found herself out of tasks. Her partner was employed at a local building site, helping lug wood and stone between a hardware outlet and the actual site, and though she’d applied as well, she’d been turned away. It didn’t take them long to work out that the manual labour they needed to survive – easy money, no documents needed, no questions asked – would not be available to her as a female.

The local bazaar was right around the corner from their apartment building, and it didn’t take her long to stow their groceries away in the tiny kitchenette, and head back out onto the streets, devoid of belongings but for her purse and the knife strapped to her thigh beneath her dark blue dress. The dress itself reached to her ankles and had sleeves to below her elbows, her headscarf the same shade of blue in a heavier fabric. She was used to the sensation of having her head covered, but the feeling of the long skirt was strange. It got in the way of her walking, swirled disconcertingly around her ankles, and made her feel oddly vulnerable. Still, she was to blend in here, and she was used to sacrificing comfort for survival.

The last time she’d been in Istanbul, she’d blown up a series of mining facilities, and helped with the assassination of the oil baron running the mines. It hadn’t been a recent mission, and she could see the city had changed quite a bit since she’d been there. The people seemed happier, more content. The city was a cultural centre, and she could see how the introduction of constant tourism had lifted Istanbul from the clutches of the war.

When she had first learnt of Istanbul, it hadn’t been too long after its name change, and she still remembered her tutor slipping and calling it Constantinople. That must have been many decades ago – because there was no evidence of Istanbul’s past name. She slipped in behind a loud gaggle of German backpackers, taking their meandering path towards the Hagia Sophia.

The odd bit of memory – _“Constantinople is – no, Istanbul, blast the Turkish – the largest and most varying hub of European religion and culture.” – _came to her, the memory of the man’s stiff grey moustache, hitting her out of nowhere. She’d had only three tutors, and only one of them had taught her anything about the world. The other two had taught her killing and discretion. Her female tutor had taught her more of discretion, and beyond that, how to use herself. As a woman, that is.

Of course, that was before they had realised how ugly she was. There was no sense sending a monster to sleep with the enemy – the monster wouldn’t be let through the door. She supposed that was how Hydra came to fund the Red Room Academy. To make beautiful hunters.

Hagia Sophia rose in front of her, cobbled pavement worn smooth, tall spires and symmetrical domed roofs gleaming wetly, still adorned with all the wealth of its creation. She, for a long moment, stared without seeing. In her mind’s eye, she could still see the little girls, those beautiful hunters, born from blood and pain. Born with her own hand, taught with her own fists and teeth.

And the best of them all, her favourite – who had once been the smallest, the skinniest, yet the proudest – red-haired and bright-eyed, uncowed by the horrors of the Academy. Малютка.

_“Дух…” _

Natalia’s voice came whispering from the carefully hidden corners of her mind as if summoned.

_“Я знал, что это был ты. Ты не помнишь?” I knew it was you. Don’t you remember?_

It hurt less now, to think of her. However, the most recent memory of her, lying bleeding beneath her – old pain and disbelief filling her pretty eyes – did ache. It was guilt. Longing, perhaps. Though, for what, she couldn’t quite pinpoint. Her and Natalia’s story was not one of love or gentleness, it was just as bloody and broken as the rest of her memories.

“60 Lira.”

She was brought out of her stupor by the bored voice of the young man manning the ticket booth she’d ended up in front of. She blinked, and fished automatically for her purse, handing the man the exact change, and joining the new line for the entrance.

Though some of the murals and gold leaf were faded by time, she could still sense the brilliance and grandeur of the basilica-come-mosque-come-museum. The domed roofs drew her eyes heavenward, and she walked through the whole place with a crick in her neck from the unnatural angle, but unwilling to lose the awe. Some parts of the Hagia were closed off for construction, the spindly scaffolding the only blight on the holy space.

There were no pews for prayer, though she caught a few people crossing themselves, whispering with clasped hands. She wondered if they knew that the orthodox roots of the place were simply roots, that Hagia Sophia was transforming into a place for the Muslim faith, that it had not been a Christian cathedral since the 15th century. She supposed it didn’t much matter.

The fact they had such faith to pray in the first time was simply interesting enough to her to watch them quietly.

She herself had never understood the concept of faith, of a higher power that had such an influence over the earth and its beings. Was she not, herself, proof of such a higher power’s non-existence? Or at least, a higher power’s abandonment. She was a blight in the natural order of things, an abomination, and if sin was _truly_ punished, then she ought to have died a painful death a very long time ago.

_Well, perhaps death was too easy a punishment._

She smiled slightly to herself. Endless torture was probably a fate that she deserved. Death – which she had granted so often to others – was probably to much of a respite for her lifetime of sin.

The light in the Hagia Sophia was equal parts blue and gold, and when she waked past the glowing chandeliers, the light faded from their artificial warmth into a cool blue which served to make her skin look even more sallow and sickly. _A monster indeed._ She tugged at the sleeves of her dress a little self-consciously, making a note to cover-up more thoroughly on her next outing. Swallowing her discomfort, she turned for the exit, brushing past a young couple laughing too loudly, and made hurried steps towards the exit.

Her time in the sun was over.


	19. Istanbul, Turkey, 2014

**April 9th, 2014**

**Istanbul, Turkey**

* * *

“Ahmet! Karın burada.” **_Ahmet! Your wife is here._**

He straightened from the pile of scrap metal he’d been sorting through at his foreman’s call. It was hot, and the beard he’d been growing out didn’t help matters. The ache in the muscles of his lower-back almost made him pause, but he’d been in worse pain before, and besides his _wife_ was here.

He spotted her immediately.

Even if he hadn’t known of her arrival, he would have picked her out of the crowd of workmen and street vendors instantly. He knew the lines of her form just as well as he knew the metal of his arm, and even through the long, indistinguishable dress and headscarf she was wearing, she was intimately familiar. She was feigning shyness now, head ducked low from the gazes of the other men, clutching a paper bag with one hand. The other hand was resting on her thigh. There, he knew, she kept her only weapon, and he felt his lips twitch at her unconscious gesture. None of the men working posed any real threat to her, but habit was hard to shake, even undercover.

He picked through the piles of broken stone and metal shavings, an undeniable curiosity speeding his movements. She had visited him at his worksites before, but never so soon after he had been contracted. Usually she waited a few days before she cased the place, and never did she announce her arrival to the other workers.

When he looked up at her again, he found her eyes fixed on him. It was only then – taking in the emotion behind her strange washed out irises – did worry seize in his chest. This was no happy visit. At his arrival, she bowed her head to him submissively, as was customary. He reached out to touch her forearm, feeling the cool of her skin through the fabric of her dark green sleeve, and allowing the touch to soothe him, even as he knew he shouldn’t take comfort in her. “Sevgilim. Bu ne?” _Darling. What is it?_ he said aloud, loud enough for any prying ears to hear.

She handed him the paper bag. “Öğle yemeğini unuttun. Vardiyasından sonra eve acele et, seni özledim_.” You forgot your lunch. Hurry home after your shift, I miss you._ Her voice was far more robotic than his, and it was only then that he realised how nervous she truly was, the tense set of her shoulders more to do with her actual emotions rather than any projected shy front. Something had unsettled her, and as he opened the paper bag to look inside, he knew that the sudden flood of adrenaline and horror through his system was mutual.

There was no mistaking the small bit of tech in the bag. It had been crushed – by his partner no doubt – but it wasn’t so tangled as to render it unrecognizable. They’d set up and used the devices themselves enough times to be familiar with them, and he knew without a doubt that the small recording device was HYDRA made.

“Elbette. Akşam yemeği için nerede buluşmalıyız?” _Of course. Where should we meet for dinner?_ He was aware of the unnatural cool tone his voice had taken on, but there wasn’t much he could do, as a numbing sort of resolution was filling him.

He’d always known that the shadow they were running from was not far from falling over them, and yet he’d allowed himself to be lulled into – well, not a sense of security – some kind of peace. His life had narrowed to the small world around them, when he should have been keeping a better eye out. As his partner twitched, something like anger filled him too. _Hadn’t they run enough?_ Then guilt – because he was stained, and dripping his ledger after him like a bloody trail, and he had done _terrible_ things, and this small bit of retribution was probably deserved.

But he couldn’t go back. He couldn’t kill for them, not again.

And he couldn’t let her go back either.

She was only just starting to sleep through the night; fully, deeply, and every day they were away from HYDRA was a better day than the last, and right there, in front of him, he could see the way the light was fading from her eyes. _He couldn’t lose her._

“Çarşı yakınındaki küçük bar.” _The small bar near the Bazaar._ His partner sounded detached, the professional tone he hadn’t heard in weeks making a reappearance. Ghost was on the surface now, and he swallowed thickly, reaching for her.

It was an instinct he wasn’t sure was rooted in _Bucky_, the _Soldier_, or… him.

He gained more memories everyday – some shattered, some whole, some faint, and some in technicolour realism – and he was beginning to think he understood who Bucky had been. Who _he_ had been. Still, the relief he felt when she intertwined their fingers didn’t inspire any fractured introspection, and he squeezed her hand once, revelling selfishly in the returned gesture.

_They were secure._

* * *

The moment he stepped into the alley opposite the small pub she’d picked as their meet-up, he was pulled into the Grey. It was what she called the strange realm of her ability, and he had to admit to the accuracy of her naming. The muted, faraway feel of the world around them had once made him uneasy, and physically nauseous, and it had taken many years and many missions to get used to operating in the Grey.

Now, though, it was easy, and he turned in her loose grip to face her. She wasn’t in her dress anymore, and was dressed in one of his spare black singlets and the only pair of jeans she owned. She looked worried, and with her face exposed he could see the downturn of her full lips and the faint crease on her pale brow.

“What happened?” He asked without preamble, taking a few steps backwards towards a pile of empty crates, and sitting. She followed him almost without noticing, steps in time with his, an old dance they’d practiced over and over again.

“I only noticed it after I came back from my walk.” She’d left early that morning and hadn’t returned before he had left for work. “Must have been that forty-five-minute window. They must have known when you’d leave and when I’d get back.”

“Eyes on us both.” He said, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, irritated. _How had he not noticed?_ “I didn’t-”

“Me either.” She said, shaking her head. Her face remained mostly impassive, but from the brief tilt to her head, he knew she was just as incensed. “They had to have been local.”

“You think HYDRA’s got locals here?” He wasn’t really asking, and she knew that too – they both knew it was the only explanation. Locals, as in, HYDRA sympathetic and their followers and employees, not high enough on the food chain to be trained and dangerous, but rich and generous enough to be kept in the loop. To be loyal. Locals blended in better than the best trained operative because they were just that; _local_. You couldn’t fake knowing a city, or being a resident so entirely.

“Better question is who.” She said, adjusting her grip on his arm, sliding down from her grip around his bicep to wrap her fingers around his wrist. The sensation made him shiver, and he forced himself from his distraction with a faint flare of irritation.

He nodded. “Though it doesn’t matter. It’s too late.”

“They’re already here.” She whispered in agreement. The locals had passed on the information, and HYDRA had dispatched someone, and they were both too late to do anything. “Бежать или драться?” _Run or fight?_ She asked, voice just as quiet.

He tilted his head. That was the question, wasn’t it? To hold their ground, or to flee. As of now, they were a few steps, a few hours ahead of whoever had been sent. They’d done more with less. “Мы бегаем.” _We run. _

So, they did.

* * *

They weren’t far from his work site when they detected their tail. Whoever it was wasn’t aiming for subtlety, and as they headed through the winding back streets towards the train station, he caught flickers of shadows in streetlights.

His partner had released them from the Grey after they’d gathered their belongings from the apartment, and though he knew she’d prefer to keep them invisible, they both knew it would be a waste of her energy. Despite wanting to evade the agents after them, it was looking more and more like it would come to a fight. He’d memorised the night train schedule when they’d arrived, and he knew the closest transit would be a cargo train to Bulgaria, and whilst it wouldn’t be comfortable, it was what they had to do.

Ahead, the station was awash in the artificial lighting and still busy despite the late hour. Automatically, he slowed, his partner moving to his side as they stepped out onto the main road. She was back in her dress and headscarf and tucked herself close to him as they headed sedately towards the ticketing booth. It was all too easy to fold her under his arm and smile at the ticket-man’s comment about his ‘lovely’ wife.

They purchased a ticket for the three-a.m. journey to Ankara, and headed towards the waiting room, still at that slow, sedate pace. But he was on high-alert, scanning the crowd for evidence of operatives, taking a seat on the thin, cracked plastic bench and trying not to look at the clock.

“Семнадцать минут.” _Seventeen minutes._ His partner said quietly. In seven minutes the freight train would arrive at the station, and would re-fuel and load the last of its cargo, and then it would leave. They had to leave it to the last minute, or risk alerting their tail. He nodded once, and she stood. “Я вернусь.” _I’ll be back._

He didn’t like it, but he knew she _would_ return. He didn’t watch her leave through the back exit, keeping his eyes on the patrons milling around outside the make-shift shelter.

_There._

Years of training made him very aware of eyes on him. He knew the difference between someone looking at him and someone looking for him. The man who had glanced at him with purpose was leaning against one of the brick pillars supporting the station’s ceiling, dressed in a navy thobe and wearing a black tubeteika. Next to him was another man wearing the same thing, though this second man’s thobe was too small, and revealed the tall tale lines of a holster around his hips.

They were no doubt well-trained, but he knew he was stronger than them – even without his arm – and sat back. He kept them in his periphery, and carefully unfolded a discarded newspaper, giving the air of nonchalance. In the distance, he could hear the train’s horn. _Twelve minutes_. The two men were speaking to each other, and as he watched, they began to wander a little closer, nodding and smiling to an old woman selling fruit as they did so. _Eleven minutes._

From behind him, he heard the door open, and three more men entered the waiting room. They took their time sitting, dotting themselves at both exits and one directly beside him in the seat that had been his partners. He could feel the man’s gun pressing lightly into his own hip. _Ten minutes._ A young mother nursing her sleeping child looked up and frowned at the men in identical dress. He turned a page of his newspaper and hoped she would get up and leave.

_Ten minutes._

Outside, men were rushing around the cargo train, refuelling the diesel engine, and attaching freight compartments. The clock on the wall seemed to have amplified, the noise of the second-hand ticking along louder than anything else. The young mother sighed as her young son blinked awake and screwed up his face to cry.

“Зимний солдат.”

The man beside him spoke under the loud wail of the child, and now the gun pressing into his side was deliberate. He set aside his newspaper, and turned to face the man as the other two inside the waiting room stood in eerie synchronicity. The mother’s eyes went wide, and she stood too, hastily gathering her belongings and making for the exit – almost running into the two men from outside as they entered.

The distinct click of the safety going off made him stiffen. “Ты должен пойти с нами. Тихо.” _You're to come with us. Quietly._ The man’s Russian wasn’t quite perfect, though it was clear from his affectation that he _did_ speak language of a Slavic nature regularly, and he frowned. If not the Russian HYDRA cells – then who?

Then, the man’s mouth dropped open and his eyes bulged wide. It was a shocking display of genuine fright and soundless pain, and for a moment he was just as confused as the other men within the shelter. But then the man convulsed once, twice, and went still – capillaries bursting in the whites of his eyes, and a thin trickle of blood coming from one of his nostrils – and his partner burst _from_ the man’s body, one hand drenched in the vivid scarlet of arterial blood.

He moved as she did, swinging up his metal hand instinctively as one of the other four fired his gun, the bullet ricocheting wildly off his forearm and directly into the plastic window with a dull crack. His partner was holding her target still between her thighs, tightening her grip around his neck as he choked, and aiming his gun at the security cameras. There was only two; ancient looking, and clearly only routed to a live feed. She dispatched the both of them efficiently, and as she did, he picked up the whole plastic bench and used it to slam the man in the tight thobe to the ground. He groaned once and did not move.

The other two men did not wait for his partner to rise from her crouch, and the gunfire made him whirl. She was already out of sight and the two men were foolishly wasting time shooting at nothing, a few bullets even making their way into their fallen comrade.

He approached them from behind, making quick work of the first, slicing neatly across the tendons of his left calf and as he crumpled with a scream, repeated the process on his dominant hand, snatching his pistol out of the air as it fell from its grip and levelling it at the other. His shot went right through the man, who looked just as surprised as he felt. His partner appeared behind the man, her hand on his shoulder keeping him phased out. He frowned and lowered his weapon anyway.

If she wanted to keep one alive, then he would trust her.

The man, however, didn’t seem to register the cease fire, and raised his gun at him again. His partner was faster, and he watched as she plunged her hand right through the man this time, shoving his arm down. The shot went awry, the bullet hitting the floor harmlessly. He stepped forwards, and punched the man in the face. _Five minutes._

He crumpled backwards, completely unconscious, and his partner grunted under the weight of him, giving him an irritated look as she hauled him back to his feet. The commotion they had caused had not gone unnoticed, and bystanders were beginning to gather, several on phones – no doubt alerting the authorities.

“We have to go.” He said, as the cargo train gave a warning honk, the engine beginning to warm up.

“Yes.” His partner said, looking unconcerned. “You’ll have to carry him.” He gaped at her as she shoved the unconscious man towards him in favour of turning to the other beside them. He sighed, and stooped to shift the man over his shoulders in a fire-man’s carry. Finally, she joined him, just as uniformed security guards appeared in the crowd. The train hooted again. _Three minutes._ “Okay. Let’s go.” She said, and reached out to take his free hand, her skin cool against his.

It was a welcome relief to disappear from sight as the security advanced on the shelter. The added mass of their prisoner meant they were moving more slowly than he would have liked, but there wasn’t anytime to argue about it. he could feel his partner’s grip getting sweaty, no doubt from the strain of keeping them all invisible and phased out as they walked directly through the crowd, slowly and surely towards the cargo train. The train honked, and began to move, and he gritted his teeth, picking up the pace of his steady walk, even as his partner gave a hiss of warning.

_Zero minutes._

She stepped into the closest container first, and he followed dutifully, closing his eyes at the nauseating visual of being _inside _the sheets of metal and bricks that were stacked against the sides of the container. It was her hand on his chest, _solid_ this time that made him open his eyes again. The small area they were in was no more than a walkway to allow workers to access and load the materials, but it would have to do.

His partner tugged her headscarf off, and he frowned at her pinched brow. “Are you okay?” he asked, and she nodded, regulating her breathing and swiping impatiently at the seat on her brow. The rumble of the train drowned out her breath, but he could track the slightly elevated rise and fall of her shoulders. He threw the man still draped over his shoulder against the block of limestone at the end of the container, and let his hands rest on his hips. “What now?” he asked, raising a brow at his partner.

Something like a smile – a twitch of her lips – made her eyes light up. “Now we make HYDRA think we’ve gone to Sofia.” She crouched, impatiently hiking up the long skirt of the dress, revealing the jeans she had on underneath, and the knife strapped to her thigh. She unsheathed her knife, and with her other hand, reached for the man’s pocket, pulling out a non-descript phone. “I doubt this is the only thing being tracked.” She said, turning to look at him.

He quickly put together what she was insinuating, and knelt beside her, reaching for the man, and running both hands over the man’s head. The faint clink of metal on metal meant he had found what he was looking for, and he parted the man’s thick hair behind his ear. When they had been in the field, every single piece of equipment and clothing they wore had been tagged with trackers. For a while in the beginning, when he’d first met her, before they had the technology to create her the suit that allowed her easier phasing, his partner had been tagged physically too. She’d had what was essentially a heart monitor that also broadcasted a geological location that had been placed inside of her ear canal. It looked as if HYDRA was recycling the same technology on all of its field agents.

His partner leant in beside him, close enough so that their foreheads were touching, and he followed her gaze to the small white and silver earpiece that disappeared into the man’s ear. It was effective to the metre, and there was no way to remove it without alerting whoever was monitoring the man’s heartrate. He let the man’s head go abruptly, and the man slumped back with an audible thump. His partner looked to have as little pity as he had, and they both sat back in unison. “We’ve just got to keep him subdued for the train ride then, until Sophia.” She nodded, eyes fixed upon the phone in her grip. “What’re you doing?” he asked, frowning as she pulled out another phone – one he didn’t remember her having earlier.

She looked up briefly, meeting his gaze as if exasperated. “Syncing the phones?” she said, and he felt his cheeks heat a little. _Obviously._ “I want to know where they’re from, and I don’t want to have to ask him.”

He nodded, thinking back to the man’s accent. “They’re not Russian.” He said. She looked at him, tilting her head slightly. He could practically see the gears turning behind her pale eyes. “What?”

“The two I dealt with – one was Russian, the other was speaking German with an accent.” She frowned to herself, looking briefly and considering at the man lying unconscious between them. _So that was what she had been up to. Buying phones and kicking more ass._ He smiled to himself. She was always mission-orientated, and he wondered how much of her habitual planning was HYDRA made, and how much of her shrewd mind was her own.

But then he remembered that she had never been ‘_her own_’, that all she had ever known was HYDRA. She hadn’t known life, she hadn’t known her family, her friends. She hadn’t felt the soft touch of a mother’s kiss on her fevered brow, hadn’t made her sister cry after accidentally breaking her doll, hadn’t held her best friend’s hand through a funeral, hadn’t felt the warm sun on her face and had rejoiced in the life she had-

He blinked, swallowing back the onslaught of oddly sepia-toned memory. His sister had been beautiful, his mother too – and now that he thought about it, he had saved up every penny to replace Rebecca’s doll, and his mother had been so proud of him. _Becky. _

_“Becky, Becky I’m sorry! Becks, I have a surprise for you, don’t be mad at me anymore…”_

_“Oh, Bucky I love it! I love it so much! You’re the best brother-”_

She was looking at him, and he realised with a start that she had spoken, and he had not answered her. “Сожалею.” _Sorry._ He said. The old warmth of the memory remained, but it only served to make the cargo hold that much darker and colder. In the dim light, his partner looked phantom like, and his heart ached for her. She didn’t repeat herself, standing and tucking her phone into her pocket. She disappeared into the wall, and guilt blossomed in his gut.

Lately, he felt as if they had fallen out of step. He’d been dreaming about her recently, too.

These dreams weren’t always blood-soaked and shadowed, though there was no doubt he suffered from violent nightmares too. These dreams were warm, and they were skin on skin, half-memory, half-fantasy, the sensory sensation of the soft flesh of her body against his, straight-razor in her hand, pressed close-enough that they could touch their lips together if they only leant a little closer. Those dreams he woke from sweating, and those dreams made waking beside her uncomfortable, because in those first bleary moments, it took everything in him not to reach for her and pull her closer.

All he wanted was to have her closer. And all she seemed to want was to be free.


	20. New York/Kazanlak 2014

**April 29th, 2014**

**New York, New York.**

* * *

**“Miss Romanoff.”**

Natasha ignored the disembodied voice, keeping her eyes on the punching bag in front of her. More often than not, JARVIS summoned her on the whims of his master, and more often than not, those whims turned out to be entirely useless. She was technically supposed to be enjoying some ‘solo-downtime’, which turned out to be more solo than she had planned.

Clint was at home, Steve and Sam were somewhere in Texas, chasing Hydra leads that she knew would go nowhere, and she had no real desire to go and spend time with Bruce whilst he was occupied with Tony.

So, she had come here, let herself into the private gym and fallen into the mindless pattern of exercise. She hadn’t used a bag in a long time and was already growing bored with it – how Steve could punch away for hours was beyond her – all her training had been live and engaging, her combative career even more so.

**“Miss Romanoff, I do beg your pardon for the interruption.” **

Natasha sighed loudly, steadying the bag with one hand, and turning her head to the ceiling. It was an unconscious habit she was still trying to break – JARVIS was not corporeal – and she could think of a few old teachers who would have scolded her for the juvenile habit. “What is it, JARVIS? If Tony’s trying to orchestrate another romantic moment between me and Doctor Banner, you can tell him to stick that moment up his-”

**“A video posted to YouTube has just triggered your search parameters.” **

“What?” Natasha stopped dead, catching sight of her own reflection in the long wall-to-wall mirrors. She looked frightened, face paling in a way that only made her resemble- “Are you sure?” She frowned, hardening her heart and face. There’d been a few hits, mostly from just after D.C., and each time they’d gone nowhere, or it hadn’t even been correct. There was no sense working herself up just to inevitably disappointed.

**“My algorithm detects a 93.7% similarity.” **

Natasha felt a swoop of excitement in her belly, a sensation she hadn’t felt in a long time. “Good. That’s good… I’ll review it in my room. Thank you, JARVIS.”

**“Of course, Miss Romanoff.”**

Then she was alone with her traitorous heart.

_“Твое лицо выдает тебя, Наталья. Сталь себе.” Your face betrays you, Natalia. Steel yourself._

The voice of the phantom she was chasing came to her just as clearly as it had the day she’d spoken. Ghost had been a woman of few words, which had only made every word she did speak resonate harder. Natasha could still remember the feeling of awe and fear she’d let freeze her still, that first day at the Academy, watching Ghost watch her.

* * *

Natasha sat at her desk, the state-of-the-art computer system booting up with a soft whir. She didn’t mind so much when Tony meddled with _this_ aspect of her life; the continuous technological advancements she had access to made things easier, and she wouldn’t begrudge upgrades.

The Stark logo flashed across her screen once before she began to type in her code to access the private system she’d set up. Natasha wasn’t sure if she was fully off Stark’s grid but was at least sure none of her data and research was being stored in the company hard drive.

The YouTube video link JARVIS had flagged was already sitting in her inbox, and she made herself busy for a moment, tidying up some of the sprawl of documents that had begun to engulf her room. She tried to pretend she wasn’t desperate, but when she looked back at her screen, her heart picked up again.

She clicked, and sat back as the video loaded.

For a moment, she wasn’t sure _what_ she was watching; the footage was grainy, taken on a hand-held device, most likely an old android phone. It showed a Turkish train station; she could see the familiar language announcing the way to the tracks on a small sign that blurred on screen for a few moments. It wasn’t particularly well lit, but the subject of the video and the scared voice of whoever was holding the phone was illuminated enough. The four walled plastic waiting area that the camera was shakily trained on was in chaos.

As she watched, a young woman ran off screen, holding a crying child. Inside the waiting area, three figures were already supine on the ground, one bloodied, and there was a light spray of scarlet across the window. The action was harder to follow, the quality of the video too poor to properly capture the swift movements of the tallest figure and the slightest figure.

But as the thin figure stood, a woman in a dress and headscarf, there was no mistaking the visual as her hand went _through_ one of the men in traditional dress. Natasha’s breath caught in her throat when the tallest man’s left arm shone metallic as he hefted the unconscious man over his shoulder. The woman turned then, a flash of her pale face too blurry to make out. Then, without warning, the three of them disappeared from sight. The person filming screamed, and then the video ended.

Natasha sat back.

“JARVIS, where was is this video from?” Her voice sounded tremulous to even her own ears, and her fingers wandered absently to the drawer of her desk, opening the hidden compartment on muscle memory alone.

**“The person who uploaded the video is located in Istanbul, Turkey.” **So, she was right.** “However, based on my knowledge of the file age and the train station in question, unfortunately, this video was filmed over two weeks ago.” **

Two weeks ago. They had a two-week lead. Natasha’s fingers tightened around the worn leather and metal in her hand. _They were long gone. Most likely on another continent by now._ The fact that they had allowed themselves be seen so publicly was a guarantee that they had fled.

**“However, it is the most solid lead collected thus far. Shall I share it with Private Wilson and Captain Rogers?” **

Natasha sighed, running her other hand tiredly over her face. “No, not yet. Let me… let me work on it. Thanks, JARVIS.”

**“You’re very welcome, Miss Romanoff.”**

The AI left her alone, and Natasha slowly brought up her hand to dangle the old watch in front of her face. She knew what it looked like down to the various scratches on the back of the worn gold body, the way it felt, how much it weighed, the familiar comforting ticking.

_“Ты забудешь меня.” **You will forget me. **_

_Natalia wanted to frown, wanted to scream and rage, wanted to ask why. Why was she leaving? Why had she come to say goodbye? Why did Natalia care at all? It wasn’t the way of the Widow to care, even about your teachers – but Natalia was already missing the woman in front of her, and she hadn’t even left yet. Natalia could see herself reflected in Ghost’s eyes, the pale, washed out green of her irises a thin line around her pupils. She was pouting, she could see it herself, but her mentor didn’t reproach her. Natalia was surprised when Ghost reached into her pocket, and even more surprised when she pulled out a small wristwatch. There hadn’t been any ceremony in the way Ghost handed it to her, but Natalia’s throat closed up at the sudden heart-wrenching flash of longing that passed over the tall woman’s face. _

_To see emotion on a face so cold was like staring into the sun, and Natalia bowed her head. “Держать его в безопасности.”_ **Keep it safe. **

_Natalia nodded eagerly, running her thumb once over the smooth face of the watch before she shoved it deep inside her smock’s pocket. She had to find a good hiding spot_. “Вы будете гордиться.” **_You’ll be proud._** _It slipped from her, far too seriously, and though she tensed for a rebuke, she met Ghost’s gaze steadily. She couldn’t take back the truth, and a part of her knew that Ghost already knew how Natalia felt for her. _

_“I’ve never had any doubt of that.” Ghost’s voice was as close to warm as Natalia had ever heard it, and she knew then, that she hadn’t been imagining the woman’s fondness for her, she hadn’t imagined the proud looks, the almost smiles, the faint connection between them that shouldn’t have been there. Before she could do something, anything – Ghost was gone – and Natalia watched her door swing close. _

Natasha’s hand trembled, and she slammed her fist down onto the table, the blow cushioned slightly by the thick folder she’d painstakingly compiled over the weeks and months that had gone by since HYDRA’s collapse. She knew the file by heart now, knew the image of the young, sunken looking woman just inside the front cover, knew the name beside it just as well.

Natasha set down the watch calmly, and opened the file. Slowly, she began to edit the last few pages, adding Istanbul, Turkey, to the pages dedicated to known whereabouts. Before she set down her pen, she turned back to the front page, to that haunting black and white picture, to the name that had turned her life upside down.

She ran her fingers over the words one last time, and tried to smile.

** _Aleksandrina Nikolaevna Romanov_ **

“I’ll find you.” She promised, and shut the folder.

* * *

**29th May 2014.**

**Kazanlak, Bulgaria.  
**

* * *

The old television set looked a few days away from ceasing to work; the old pixelated screen flickering wildly with strips of blue, only one knob still left on the set. Still, she could make out the scene.

The black and white movie had caught her attention a few times since she’d stepped into the local deli to get her evening banitsa. This place was the best in Kazanlak, and she was beginning to admit she had a problem, as she found herself back for their pumpkin banitsa every day. The movie itself was pretty average – though she was no film critic, and had never actually watched one – but the climax of the story was beginning to wrap up, which meant the two main characters were about to sail into their future.

That wasn’t what had drawn her attention, however.

It was the hopeless way the man and the woman were staring at each other, the lengthy monologue of adoration between them. It was the gentle way the man was holding the woman now, the way he stroked his finger along her lip and the way she sighed into him-

She swallowed, lifting her fork at the sudden flip in her stomach.

_Perhaps the banitsa was bad._

She lifted one of the top layers of pastry to peer inside the banitsa, but found no evidence of anything that might have turned her stomach so. She looked back, casually, at the screen.

They were… _kissing_.

Yes. Kissing.

She’d seen it before, she knew what it was. But she hadn’t seen it so… passionate before. Her stomach fluttered again. Her experience with touch and others was limited to the casual public relationships. She knew that people got together, that they lived lives together. She knew about _love._ She _did_. She knew the way people linked themselves together, the way they lived side-by-side, the way they sacrificed and fought for each other’s survival and happiness. She knew love.

Unbidden, her thoughts turned to her partner.

_Was that love?_

She rose abruptly, some innate desire to flee – though she couldn’t run from her own thoughts – making her drop coins on the table and leave the cosy deli. Outside, sunset was beginning to turn the thin streets and surrounding hills a brilliant, impossible gold. The whole town smelt like roses, and she could see people already decorating for the Rose Festival that would begin tomorrow.

The open air provided no distraction or reprieve from the forbidden thoughts plaguing her. Was it love that inspired her sentiment for him? Was it love that made her so fearful of losing him? Was it love that stirred her heartbeat when she felt his eyes upon her?

HYDRA had seen her weakness for him many years ago. HYDRA had used that same weakness to control her, which only served to reinforce her confusion. The _purity_ of the emotion – it couldn’t bloom in the dark places she’d been.

_It couldn’t be love._

Satisfied – or at least resolved to turn her mind from it – she slowed her frantic pace. She’d gotten quite far into the rose fields, and surrounded by the waist-high bushes, she tried to breathe. Kazanlak was far enough off the beaten track that the pocket of peace felt real. Tourists were beginning to filter in for the festival, but she wasn’t worried. The likelihood of HYDRA finding them, of _anyone_ finding them, was slim. It meant she had been alone with her thoughts more than was probably wise.

Take her most recent dive into the complexities of human emotion as a prime example.

Her partner didn’t seem to mind. In fact her partner seemed to be revelling in the opportunity to simply _be._ He’d been writing in his little book almost every spare moment he had, smiling to himself sometimes too. It made her chest tight and made it hard to be around him – even as it caused her distress to be apart. She felt torn apart in every which direction, whilst he seemed to be growing more whole by the day.

He’d winked at her yesterday. She’d never seen the gesture before, and had nodded in return. It had seemed to make him uncomfortable, and in turn, further her own confusion. She felt out of step with him, and it seemed as though he was noticing. Perhaps he’d decide soon that he should return to his Stevie and leave her behind. She was a liability and she didn’t know how to exist in this human world, and he did, and the differences between them were only growing more obvious.

_He couldn’t even meet her eyes anymore._

Her knees hit the sun-warmed earth before she realised that she’d collapsed. Her throat felt constricted and her eyes were burning. Worse was the sinking empty feeling causing a chasm in her chest to widen. She sucked in a breath, humiliated at the sawing sob that came out of her mouth. She lowered her head, pressing a hand to her mouth as if it would keep the feeling in. _Sentiment._

She knelt there until the wetness in her eyes had faded and she could draw a breath without feeling faint. The world tilted on its axis when she stood, and she blinked away the lights dancing at her vision impatiently.

This was what sentiment did to her.

She couldn’t imagine the effects of love.

* * *

**30th May, 2014**

**Kazanlak, Bulgaria**

* * *

She hadn’t come in last night.

That was what had kept him so alert, and the moment he heard her footsteps in the kitchen he sat bolt upright. He hadn’t slept, which he was beginning to realise was a problem, because now sleep was a necessity, and he could remember now he’d _always_ been snappy on too little sleep. It didn’t stop him from hurrying to go confront her. _She should know better._

She was standing at the window, halfway through one of the many plums she kept buying. There was dirt and grass on her jeans. He frowned. “Where’ve you been?” It came out a little louder than he had intended, and she twitched before she looked at him.

“Out?” she said, tilting her head slightly, clearly confused at the question.

“You couldn’t have said you were leaving?” he asked. What didn’t she get? They were on the run. If either of them were caught, then they were both compromised.

She set down her plum, licking once at the juice that had run down her thumb. He tried not to watch the gesture, scowling instead. “Why are you upset?” she asked finally. Her tone was almost nonchalant, but there was a genuine question in her eyes.

“I’m not upset.” He told her. “I’m frustrated. If you keep running off, and if something happens-”

“I am capable of handling myself.” She cut him off, voice hardening into something cold. “You forget who showed _you_ the way.”

He scoffed. “I was hardly helpless. And I seem to remember saving your ass _plenty_ of times.” He regretted it as soon as he had said it, because it wasn’t fair. She’d done the same more times than he could count, and their relationship had always been based on mutual survival. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.” He apologized.

“I think you did.” She said, just as coolly. “You Americans are born with superiority complexes.” She sounded, for the first time, bitter – but the sting of her words was enough to make his latent irritation grow.

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” He asked her. She didn’t look apologetic, and he took a step towards her, wishing she would crack that stupid, icy mask she was wearing.

“It means what I said.” She said, and made to turn away from him. He grasped her shoulder, and spun her back around.

She eyed him, unafraid, and he realised with a start that her eyes were red-rimmed. “Were you crying?” he blurted, whatever he had been about to say disappearing in wake of his horrible revelation.

“No.” she spat, and jerked herself out of his grip. “What does it matter if I was?”

He gaped at her. “It matters.” He said finally. She wasn’t looking at him anymore, fists balled at her sides. _She was slipping away, water through his fingers._ “Ghost, it matters.” She flinched at the name. “Look, it matters, okay. We’re partners. I was just worried, doll.” _Fuck._

She frowned, giving him that same uncomfortable look she’d been wearing for weeks, and he cursed his stupid slip. “Partners.” She repeated, a little dully.

“Yeah.” He took a step towards her again. “Partners tell each other things. Мы никогда не хранили секретов.” **_We've never kept secrets._** Except that he had, he _was_, but it was different because he didn’t want to drive her away. The way she was looking at him though, almost through him, made him feel exposed. _She couldn’t know._ Unless… unless that was why she’d been pulling away – because she knew what he had been dreaming about, she knew about his longing and his weak heart.

She couldn’t know.

She couldn’t know about _that_, because HYDRA had never told her, had never shown her. She was innocent in that aspect, and he didn’t want to ruin that either. He had no right. She deserved to learn things herself, to experience life herself. She had nothing, and he had already had everything. He had no right to take or choose, and maybe she was starting to realise she had no obligation to stay with him, and maybe she was thinking of leaving.

“Мне нужно идти. У меня есть кое-что сделать.”** _I have to go. I have some things to do. _**She said, just as quietly, and he felt something rip and tear. _Water through fingers._ She turned to leave, slipping past him and disappearing down the hall.

“Fuck!” he lashed out, flesh-arm slamming into the wooden benchtop beside him and sending splinters of oak flying everywhere. “Блядь.” He swore again and covered his shaking fist with his other hand.

* * *

From the back room of their little shack, she could hear him swearing and pacing like a caged animal, and felt new guilt weigh her stomach. She had done that. She had angered him and hurt him, and she had left him.

It was her fault.


	21. Kazanlak, Bulgaria, 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand here we are! This is the final chapter of the first installment of Ghost and the Soldier's story. If you'd like to end your time with me here, I want to thank you so much for even reading so far! 
> 
> Stay tuned for more, coming sooner than you might think... 
> 
> kisses!  
\- Fish S. Tick

**1st June, 2014**

**Kazanlak, Bulgaria. **

* * *

The small shack was quiet, but she couldn’t quite work up the courage to break the silence. Her partner was frowning at the newspaper in front of him, eating with his non-dominant hand, his metal fingers working delicately enough to turn the pages without ripping them.

It had been uncomfortable since their… disagreement.

_It had been a fight, but she wasn’t ready to admit it, too afraid if she did, the cracks between them would widen._

She stood, picking up his empty bowl along with her own, almost missing his surprised look as she turned to the sink.

“Thank you.” His voice was careful, and she clenched her teeth as she dunked their bowls under the tap.

“You’re welcome.” She responded, just as cautiously. She washed and dried the bowls before she turned back to him. It had given her the time to think over her next words. “Would you like to come to the festival?” she asked. He’d abandoned his newspaper, his eyes intent on her, and for a moment, she felt uncomfortable under his gaze, body flushing with unfamiliar heat. “It is the last day, and I think it would raise suspicion if we do not attend.” She said, laying out her reasoning with all the seriousness she would outline an infiltration plan.

It seemed to amuse him, and he blinked, lips twitching as if he wanted to smile. _She wished he would_. The desire made her feel hot again, and she ducked her gaze, ready to retreat. Perhaps it was too soon to make amends for her mistake-

“Sure.” He said, casually. She looked at him again. “Are ya planning do wear that?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice, and she looked down at herself, at her layered sleep-clothes. It had been cold last night, and she hadn’t felt like she would be welcome next to him.

She sniffed delicately, plucking at the top layer of her shirts. “You’ll just have to wait and see.” She hadn’t, in fact, put thought into what she was going to wear, and realised she probably didn’t have anything appropriate. “Be ready by fourteen-hundred.” She told him decisively.

This time, the small smile that had been growing on his face reached its fullness, and she felt her cheeks warm. She disappeared into the Grey hurriedly, watching his faint confusion for a moment before she turned on her heel. _It wasn’t wrong,_ she reasoned, she really did have to get going if she was to secure suitable attire for the festival. She couldn’t wear what she had brought; she’d stick out like a target with her partner’s sight trained on him.

It was an odd feeling, to be out of her depth, in something so mundane as this. The streets, despite the early hour, were already filling, old petals and flower crowns carpeting the ground, more carts already being wheeled out, laden with yet more roses. Even in the Grey, where sensations were dulled, the thick scent of them was sweet enough to be near overwhelming.

She could pick the tourists out of the meandering people on the streets. The locals were befitted in traditional dress, and most of the tourists were in light linens and pastel colours, the woman in skirts, the men in pants despite the rising heat. Occasionally, she would pass tourists with cameras, clearly intent on capturing the festival. She made a mental note to avoid those with the gadgets. They couldn’t risk exposure.

She walked the streets for an hour longer, the sun rising higher and higher in the sky, the new roses beginning to replace the old. The Rose Queen was to be crowned today, and she had passed a line of girls dressed for the pageant talking nervously a large stage in the centre of the town square, stilt-walkers getting ready for the day beside them. A gaggle of local children, the girl’s full skirts hiked up, and the boy’s unbound waistcoats flapping, chased each other across the road in front of her. She followed their helter-skelter gambolling idly, eyes falling upon a small tailor’s shop across the road as they galloped past. In the window, Kazanlak traditional dress was proudly displayed next to skirts and dresses favoured by some of the tourists.

_Perfect._

* * *

He wasn’t sure why he was feeling so nervous.

What had been a routine set of actions; shower, shaving, dressing – had turned into an hours’ long primping session. The practical voice in his head told him that he should have just tied his hair back and put on long-sleeved shirt and call it a day, perhaps take inventory of their supplies with the spare time. However, his newer, vainer impulses were keeping here. Here, as in, a few steps from the floor-length mirror which had seen better days, but was the only viable spot to make out his reflection.

He squinted at his reflection. Had the bags under his eyes always been so pronounced? Had his hair always looked so… untamed? He should cut it. He should cut it short, and maybe that would detract some attention away from his _hideous _facial hair – seriously, how did he expect women to take him seriously with a lumberjack beard-

His internal monologue made him pull up short, because really, there was only one woman he wanted to take him seriously and he wasn’t even sure if she _looked_ at him. At least, in the way she looked at him.

He’d missed her the last few days, which felt strange to say, because she hadn’t left the shack since their fight, and yet she’d been so distant it was as if she hadn’t been there at all. He was in disbelief, actually, that she’d spoken to him. That she’d invited him out.

_Well… more announced their imminent departure._

He grinned to himself. She was endearing in her seriousness, and he wondered if she knew it. _He doubted it. _he also seriously doubted she’d notice or even care about his beard, or the colour of his shirt but still…

He wanted to see if she would blush again.

Yes, he’d caught it. She hadn’t disappeared quite quick enough, and she was so pale that it had been like a neon sign above her head saying ‘_I’m flustered’_, and though he wasn’t quite sure what had triggered it, he wanted to see it again.

_God, he sounded like Stevie, mooning over her, waxing poetic. _

Steve.

Something deep-rooted ached when he thought about him. About the Man on the Bridge, the Man on the Helicarrier, his Target, his last, failed mission. It was tiring, trying to separate that man from Steve. What they had done to him, in the Chair, it made it _physically_ difficult to think about him. But he did anyway. He thought about him the most. He hadn’t thought of himself as a person who attached so much of themselves to another, but he was, and now aware of the parts of him that had belonged to the tiny boy from Brooklyn, to the man who had become a hero to _everyone_, and how they had been stolen and mangled. Steve had been _his_, as much as she was his too. He missed the person he had been too, the ease of it. Bucky Barnes had been a man he might have disliked now, and that was part of the problem.

The man that Steve was looking for, he wasn’t so sure could be found. Not fully anyway.

It didn’t mean he would stop looking for him.

* * *

It was 2:00pm.

It was 2:00pm and she wasn’t _here_.

He wanted to pace, maybe bounce nervously, but he was better trained than that, and so he stewed still and silent, resisting the urge to check the cracked clock above the kitchen sink. It was only because he was looking towards the window did he notice the flicker of pink out the front of the shack.

He hadn’t moved so fast since they’d arrived in the sleepy village, and he forced himself to pause as he reached for the front door’s handle, gloved fingers flexing impatiently. _Easy._ _Take it easy._ He nodded to himself once, and then opened the front door.

At first all he registered was _pink_, because the shade was so surprising, especially set against the porcelain of her skin and – _oh, shit she was in a dress._

Ghost turned to face him, the slightly belled skirt of the flaring with the movement. The dress had small cap-sleeves, but it left her neck and décolletage exposed and he couldn’t help but drop his gaze for a moment. It was shorter than the skirts she’d been in during their time in Istanbul, and it was like he was seeing her for the first time.

It was her uncomfortable shift to hide herself slightly that dulled the roaring rush of blood in his ears, and he gave himself a mental shake. “You’re in a dress.” He said and winced. _Great. Smooth._

She nodded uncertainly, hands falling from where she’d crossed her arms to smooth down her bodice. “I thought I should blend in.” she said, eyes searching his face with sudden intensity, clearly trying to decipher whatever expression was on his face. “You shaved.” She mimicked his tone near perfectly, and he smiled, reaching up to touch the tamed stubble on his jaw.

“Do you like it?” He asked her boldly.

She blinked, seemingly caught off guard. Her gaze settled somewhere over his left shoulder as she nodded, “y-yes.” The tinge of pink that crept over her cheeks, and – he noted with delight – down her neck and her chest was enough to make all of the hours of vanity worth it. She cleared her throat, still looking determinedly past him. “We should go. We don’t want to miss our window.”

He grinned at her. There was a buoyancy in his chest, and when he offered her his arm as they reached the main road, she took it in her grip. It was a touch he was familiar with, and yet it felt brand new.

* * *

She could feel his eyes on her and hoped that she at least was behaving with more subtlety. She hadn’t seen the deep red shirt he was wearing before, and she _liked it._ Probably a little more than she should. It was making his eyes more blue than grey, and he’d pulled his hair up and out of his face. He looked beautiful. That was what the man in the film had called the attractive woman, and it felt fitting.

A small, guilty part of her wondered if he thought the same.

She felt ungainly in the dress. It emphasized the thinness of her limbs, the paleness of her flesh, the odd length of her hair, which stuck up and grew outwards awkwardly. _She should cut it. Shave it off like she was used to. _Absently she reached up to run her fingers over her scalp, feeling the raised ridges of the scars mostly hidden in her hair.

Her partner made a small noise, and she looked up instinctively. He was already looking at her, with that same heaviness he’d had in his eyes since he’d seen her in the dress, and the heat that was making her _so aware_ of him threatened to make her flush again. “You’re right.” She frowned, more confused than flustered now, and waited for him to clarify. “We’re missing gear.”

“I brought gear.” She said, a little bewilderedly, and stopped to lift the hem of her dress slightly to show him the thigh holster she was wearing, with a twin set of knives for the both of them. His eyes widened, and as she dropped the dress again, he began to cough loudly.

“Not- that’s – I mean.” He managed finally, eyes watering a little with the force of his choking. “I meant some roses. Can’t be at the rose festival without some flowers.”

She turned, scanning the crowds around them. They were nearing the center of town, almost at the store she’d gotten the dress, and the crowds were thickening with the proximity to the town square. He was undisputedly correct. People were all befitted with the bright blooms, in chains around their necks, on crowns atop their heads, clutching large bouquets – they were the only two without so much as a petal upon them. “You’re right!” she said, resisting the urge to scowl. _She should know better. _“I’ll be right back.” She told him, eyes falling upon a wooden cart across the packed street.

“No, it’s-”

She missed the end of his speech, slipping into the Grey and walking straight through the crowds, towards the cart. An elderly man was sitting on the flattened edge of it, head down, busy weaving roses through a thin wire frame, piles of neat flower crowns already made, loose blooms in a large metal pail next to him. She phased into sight a few paces away, approaching at a human pace. “добър ден, господине.”** _Good afternoon, sir_**_._ She greeted him. He looked up with a grunt, lined face set in faint frown. “Колко за корона?” **_how much for a crown?_**

“Само за теб?” **_Just for you?_** He asked, gravelly voice kinder than she had expected.

She turned, picking out her partner still standing where she’d left him, taller and broader than the others on the streets. “За мен и моя партньор.” **_For me and my partner_**_. _The word slipped out before she meant it to, and the dawning smile on the old man’s face confirmed the nature of the term.

“От колко време сте заедно?” **_how long have you been together?_** He asked, pulling out another wire frame and reaching for a darker rose, more red than pink. She didn’t really wish to talk with the man, both training and faint impatience making her itch to leave. The question didn’t help either.

She looked at her partner again, meeting his eyes this time. He raised a brow, a simple question and she shook her head, turning away from him. “усеща се като завинаги.” **_It feels like forever_**_._ It rang with truth, truth that made the man smile, revealing a missing front tooth.

“Млада любов.” **_Young love_**_._ He crooned. He nodded to himself as she ducked her head slightly, strangely bashful. “Няма такса.” **_No charge_**_._ He said, and shoved two crowns at her. One, the larger one he had just made, was full of the darker roses, and the other, smaller and somehow more delicate was made up of the palest pinks and white roses.

“Oh, не - сър, не мога да го приема-” **_Oh, no - sir, I can't accept it-_** she tried, but he was insistent, shoving them into her hands, and she took them, unwillingly to crush the blooms.

“Няма такса.” **_No charge._** He said again, firmly. “Просто му кажете да предлага вече.” **_Just tell him to propose already._** He said, with a pointed look at her unadorned fingers.

She laughed nervously, nodding. “Аз ... ще ... благодаря.”** _I- I will… thank you._**

He waved her off, focus already back on his work. “Насладете се на фестивала.” **_Enjoy the festival_**_._ She stepped far enough away that she could slip into the Grey without attracting notice, and then hurried back over, slipping coins quietly into his small box of change.

Her partner was still waiting for her patiently, though he’d turned to watch the people making their way towards the square. The street was empty enough that she snuck up on him, stretching up on her tiptoes to set the red crown atop his head. He jumped as the weight of it suddenly settled on him, one hand flying to touch it, the other darting for his waistband, no doubt for his hidden weapon. She laughed, and he turned in her direction, eyes fixing on her position with unnerving accuracy.

He looked around once, before he reached for her, and though she could have avoided him easily, she let him catch her, drawing her in by her wrist, and she phased in as she stumbled into him. He blinked at her sudden reappearance, before he smiled gently. He released her wrist in favour of reaching for her face, and she stilled. “Your crown’s crooked.” He said, quietly. His fingers ghosted over her jaw and temple on the way to the flower-circlet, and the tremulous flutter of her heart made her swallow back a sigh.

What was it about him, that felt so _new_?

Sudden fanfare from behind them made them both twitch into alertness, and she involuntarily phased them both out of sight. “Все нормально. Думаю, это просто начало парада.” **_It's alright. It's just the parade starting, I think._** He muttered, and she shook her head at herself, casting another cursory look around before she let the Grey go.

“Сожалею.” **_Sorry_**_._ She said. The unexpected weight of his arm settled around her shoulders, and she looked up at him.

He grinned at her, and she wondered if he was feeling the same bubbling excitement she was. It was an unfamiliar sensation, and yet she didn’t want to lose it, not yet. The sun was still full and bright, despite it’s slow descent towards the horizon, and the roses around them were still lush. _Not yet._ She wished to freeze the feeling, to keep it close to herself.

She couldn’t ever go back to HYDRA. Not with a world so beautiful, with moments so sweet.

“Let’s go watch the parade. And then, you’ll have to show me these pastries you like.” He said, easily, and she let him steer them towards the town center.

* * *

“Do you want mine?” she offered, unable to help the laughing tone to her voice as she watched her partner busily lick the powdered sugar from his fingers. Though it was delicious, she wasn’t as big a fan of the sweet, pumpkin pastry, _tikvenik_, but judging by her partner’s wide-eyed enjoyment of the dessert, it wouldn’t be wasted on him.

He looked up a little guiltily. “You sure?” he asked, already eyeing the pastry in her hand ravenously. They’d found a spot under one of the eaves of the store fronts lining the towns square, taking notes from the other locals and tourists that had sat to eat during the slot of time between the parade and the crowning of the Rose Queen. After the coronation, there was to be a fire-work display, and she couldn’t deny her excitement. She’d never seen fire-works before, and according to her partner, they were something to be marveled at.

Vendors had set up camp around the square too, and it hadn’t taken long to secure a variety of foods. “I’m sure.” She said, and gave him the pastry. She picked up a small card carton of strawberries, and picked the largest of the bunch. She might not have had much of a sweet tooth, but _fruit_\- 

She hummed happily at the sweet flavour of the berry, meeting her partner’s eyes as he grinned with his cheeks bulging, pastry already gone whole into his mouth. She reached out and playfully shoved his face away. “Тьфу.” **_Yuck_**.

“Delicious!” he argued just as lightly, through his mouthful, and she wrinkled her nose, trying to smile. “Looks like the coronation’s coming up.” She followed his sharp gaze to the girls that were assembling side-stage, only visible from where they were sitting. He was right; a few moments later, a portly man stepped on stage with a microphone, and began a halting introduction in both broken English and Bulgarian. “C’mon.” he stood, and took her hand, pulling her up in one easy movement. She glared at him as two of her strawberries fell from the container. He rolled his eyes, smile lines still visible, and a brightness to his eyes she hadn’t seen in a while. “I’ll buy you more, grumpy, come _on_.”

She let him lead her through the gathering crowd, making a beeline for the dry fountain in the center of the square. On stage, the candidates for Rose Queen were speaking, and she couldn’t help but smile a little at the earnestness of their speeches. This festival meant a lot to this small town, and she could see it on the faces of the locals, young and old alike.

Her partner stepped up on the ledge of the fountain, drawing a few disgruntled looks from the people around them, but she didn’t have a second to caution him before he was tugging her up with him. His hand fell to her waist then, flesh hand burning a brand through the thin cotton of her dress, and the admonishment died in her throat. He wasn’t looking at her, scanning the sky above them instead, and yet his hand lingered.

Her heartbeat was very suddenly in her throat as she took him in, loose hair framing his face, eyes impossibly blue, the blood red of the roses making her think of a thousand other moments she’d had to look at red set against his skin. She never wanted to see him hurt again. More than she wanted anything, she wanted him to be safe.

This time, the sudden roar of the crowd didn’t startle her, and up on stage the newly anointed Rose Queen took her bow. The sun was set, but the faintest edge of gold was just turning the air around them to liquid, and she could not do anything but stare.

“What is it?”

He was looking back down at her, and that brilliant light in his eyes seemed to be a fire, hot and blazing and calling her like a moth to flame.

“Darling, you are beautiful.” She whispered, the last lines of the film spilling from her, because she seemed unable to form words and comprehensible thoughts of her own, and his beauty belonged on film.

His sudden stillness should have been alarming, but she _knew_ him, and she could see the jump of his pulse at his throat, hear the low edge of mechanics whirring as he clenched his free fist, feel the way his hand tightened on her waist.

“Какая?” _What?_

There was tremulous note to his voice and as terrible as it was, that faint indication of weakness made her grow bolder, the hunter in her still alert. “Ты слышал меня.” _You heard me. _He blinked, and she realised his pupils were blown wide, lips parting as he exhaled roughly. And yet, he was still – stiller than stone, stiller than steel, stiller than ice. “Мы в безопасности.” **_We’re secure._** She told him, meaning it more than ever.

One hand on her became two, as he brought his gloved hand up to hold her cheek. She felt caught, and yet she didn’t want to escape, trapped in _him_. “Мы в безопасности.” **_We’re secure._** He whispered, and the feeling of his breath upon her lips made her suddenly aware of how close they were. _And she wasn’t afraid as he leant closer._

As their lips touched, hesitant and soft, the sky exploded.

She had been looking forward to the fireworks, to the brilliance of them, the miracles he had described, but she couldn’t bare the thought of parting from him. And the sparkling display above them was paling in comparison to the fire raging through her, the spark leaping between them. He pressed into her, pulling her tight to him, and she gasped, open mouthed.

The sudden shift in the depth of the kiss made them both groan, and the sudden hunger that gripped her was near frightening, as she chased his mouth. She was messy and ungraceful, and it became apparent she was out of her depth as he ran his tongue delicately over the seal of her bottom lip, making heat flare low within her. The unfamiliar sensation made her startle, inhaling and jerking away from him. She stared at him wide-eyed, at his swollen lips and soft, _soft_ eyes. For a moment, neither of them moved.

The gentle brush of something upon her skin, and the sounds of cheering made her blink and look around. All around them, people were throwing petals into the sky, a final salute to the rose, and the people around them were smiling, tossing gentle handfuls of the blooms their way, a salute to their close embrace.

The eyes on her set off alarm, but there was no malice in the crowd, nothing but joy and delight, and when her partner gently brushed his gloved thumb over her cheek, she turned back to him willingly. The soft look was gone, and instead he was looking so painfully worried that her heart ached.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… are you-”

She kissed him again, still painfully awkward as she tried to emulate his technique, but his delighted hum and the renewed shower of petals was worth any embarrassment she might have felt.

There was an odd sensation of _rightness_, of _satisfaction_. This was a man she had shared her darkest hours with, and this feeling, this moment, it seemed to make it right. This was the key slipping into the lock, the shot through the centre of the target, the ocean meeting the sand. This was familiar and new and somehow she thought she had felt it all along. _Sentiment._ It was weakness, but right then it was also strength, and the coldest parts of her felt warm. There were shadows with their white-knuckled grips still tight upon her, and yet, the light here was chasing them away, throwing them into translucent memories.

She was a monster, she was wrong, she was nothing but a _ghost _– yet he was holding her like treasure, and kissing her anyway.


End file.
